Where does anything begin?

You could start the story of Morcheeba when Skye Edwards was heard singing at a party by the Godfrey brothers, Paul and Ross in 1995, a meeting that led them to form the band. Or maybe when she left them eight years later at the height of their success. Possibly you could begin when they met again years later and decided they could try to work together again.

Or maybe you could go right back to childhood and picture Skye Edwards listening to her mother's country and western records every Sunday while her mum made dinner. "I grew up with white parents from the East End. I was fostered from a young age. I always say it was fish and chips, not rice and peas in our house. And cockles and winkles on a Friday."

Edwards is the face and voice of Morcheeba. She has spent recent years recording and performing her own music, but as of 2013 she is again a fully paid-up member of the band - a band that has yet to really explore the possibilities of country and western. Which is actually a little surprising. Over the years their sound has been labelled dance, chill-out, pop, electronica.

When they started in the mid-1990s, they were corralled into the sound of the moment, trip hop. "Lots of comparisons to Portishead and Massive Attack and people thinking we were from Bristol and all hanging out together," recalls Edwards. "I met Tricky for the first time four months ago in Switzerland. I met the white guy from Massive Attack a couple of years ago.

"It was amazing to be compared to such amazing bands but we outgrew that trip hop label quite quickly. We're still waiting for someone to come up with a name that describes our sound."

Perhaps that is because Morcheeba have tried a bit of everything over the years (reggae and easy listening have even been essayed). That and the fact they have found room on their records for input from artistes as diverse as Slick Rick and Lambchop's Kurt Wagner (and even Judie Tzuke in the years when Edwards was estranged).

New album Head Up High includes raps from Rizzle Kicks and input from French-Chilean musician Ana Tijoux, who has also turned up on the Breaking Bad soundtrack.

But it is Edwards's smokey, bespoke voice that most plainly characterises Morcheeba, from their early singles Tape Loop and Trigger Hippie to the current album, which she is clearly hugely proud of. "It is what we set out to achieve, something a little more up tempo. Paul described it as Morcheeba with a pulse, even before we had started. It is a bit harder for Ross to get his head around doing faster stuff, but we are looking forward to playing it."

The fact there is a new album and accompanying tour at all is something. When Edwards left the band in 2003 the divorce was a painful one. "I felt really hurt by them. Lawyers had been involved and all sorts of stuff, so I was just thinking, 'Why would I want to go back?'"

So why did she? "I was basically bullied by my husband. He said, ' You have to go back, you owe it to Morcheeba, to the fans and yourself.'"

Eventually she met her former bandmates, went out for dinner, got drunk and decided, 'Why not?'.

"I am still nervous and Paul and I did have a falling out a few months later and it almost fell apart again because I was still scarred. I think they did not like the fact they needed me. I have always said Morcheeba was three of us and I hated when I had to do TV shows by myself and make videos by myself. But they kind of put me in that position and then hated it when people were calling me Morcheeba instead of Skye."

If the band has changed, so has the culture they have returned to. Music is more aggressive, more impatient and more sexualised. As Edwards points out, when she started only Madonna was doing that.

"I've got a 15-year-old daughter and she thought the Miley video was funny. And then the Rihanna video that came out after that she thought, 'Oh, she's gone too far'. I'm glad we've come this far and we're still going and I haven't got my t**s out to sell any more records."

Morcheeba play O2 ABC, Glasgow on Monday