Moby - Wait For Me (2009)

A good year after Mobys last record Last Night he returns with a new album that has been eagerly awaited by the fans, because Moby has stated that with this album hes essentially tried to return to making music, for the love of making music, without really being concerned about how it might be received by the marketplace.

As a result its a quieter, more melodic, more mournful and more personal record than some of the records hes made in the past. Its also, for better or worse, all homemade, in that Moby recorded it at home, in his studio on the lower east side, with his friends and drew the artwork with a black sharpie on copy paper.

The record begins with Division, a two-minute long instrumental that glides along with whispering synthetic strings. The following track, Pale Horses, and 2nd single, continues to set the tone for the record with Amelia Zirin Brown adding, Put me on the train, send me back to my home. Couldnt live without you when I tried to roam. Put me by the window. Let me see outside. Looking at the places where all my family died.

The albums first single, while being instrumental, again confronts the ongoing sadness that is evident throughout the record. Shot In The Back Of The Head reveals an interesting inverted loop that works beneath moaning guitar to lend a picture of moroseness to the music.

Walk with Me continues by utilizing vocals that sound almost like weeping.Mistake is the albums first vocal track. Where Moby has made a habit of tossing in a few outliers on his albums, the relaxed Mistake is oddly about as far from the norm as Wait For Me gets musically.

The album continues through similar trends, JLTF 1 is a beautiful track that blends deliberate piano with melancholic lyrics, Hope Is Gone is a slow burning ballad, Ghost Return and Slow Light deliver gloomy keys and Isolate concludes the record with a tone similar to Shot In The Back Of The Head, if only with a less energy and a single violin playing in the background.

Regardless of history and intent, what Moby has created with Wait For Me is intensely personal. While the tone of the albums songs are consistently reflective, and strikingly dark, as a whole they represent a piece of music that is the most thorough Moby has created in a decade.
At times you hear Play, and at times you hear Everything Is Wrong, but at no time can you hear a track that is truly expected.

Out June 30th

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Pale Horses from Moby on Vimeo.