Skye Edwards’ solo career is not so much a fresh start as a credibility reconstruction job. Her former band, Morcheeba, became something of a target towards the end of their recording career – though the detractors may have been unfairly overlooking the exquisitely chilled coffe-table pop moments on their 1998 high-watermark Big Calm.
Of course, Morcheeba did decline into sub-M People wine bar dross after this, the nadir of which was the toe-curlingly awful smash hit single ‘Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day’.
Now, Skye has wisely shed her old bandmates, and is trying to redeem her reputation with the help of fresh collaborators. Unfortunately, they’ve taken her on a journey even deeper into the heart of bland-core than latter day Morcheeba ever managed - quite a feat.
Skye’s voice, once a thing of sultry excellence, now sounds breathy and oddly lacking in personality. This is the sort of record that the term “wishy-washy” was invented for – all light programmed drum pitter-patter, drippy acoustic guitar and heavingly dull string arrangements.
Okay, Mind How You Go is not my kind of thing – an exercise in trip-hop-lite, even if you played the album a dozen times back-to-back, you'd have to be an extremely attentive listener to remember a second of it.
Commercially, Skye could still be a force. She was the most publicly-recognised member of the Morcheeba by a distance, and will be the sole beneficiary of any trickle-down effect from their success.
Creatively? This is the sort of music that Dido would listen to approvingly, in between sessions of recording similarly mediocre material. See, I told you it wasn't my kind of thing!