Moby - Last Night

Jul 9, 2008

It's 9 years since Moby released the coffee table favourite Play, widely known as the first album to ever have every track licensed for commercial usage. Having been a relatively underground artist, Play catapulted Moby firmly into the living rooms of the masses and gave an artist known for a varyingly successful diversity a dilemma. How do you follow up an album that has sold 10 million copies worldwide whilst continuing to spread yourself over the different genres that you have so loved to explore? It seems that the answer for Moby was that you don't.

Follow up 18 saw a retread of the spiritual samples and blues referencing that had made Play so popular while last album Hotel swapped the samples for bland electronic musings.. So, Moby returns to the frame with his 9th studio album, Last Night , and it seems that many of those pressures emanating from Play have finally dissipated. This time Moby actually seems to be enjoying himself. A journey through rave culture, classic hip-hop and electronica, can this be the album to finally allow Moby to step out of the shadow of his best-known work?

Describing it as 'a love letter to New York dance music', Moby has returned to the stylings that so affected him 20 years ago when he began making music. If that makes it sound underwhelming, nothing could be further from the truth. In truth his approach to making the album sums it up well: 'I essentially tried to take a long 8 hour night out in New York City and condense it into a 65 minute long album'. The concept almost works. The best tracks on the album are generally the ones that stay faithful to the retro sounds of the dance floors that he's referring to. 'Everyday It's 1989' is a non-ironic piano house, hands-in-the-air anthem, while 'I Like To Move in Here' offsets its rave tendencies with a guest rap from original Rapper's Delight writer and Wild Style alumni, Grandmaster Cas, while 'The Stars' could have been filling the floors at The Hacienda twenty years ago. There are other gems here as well. Lead single, 'Alice' is dark and moody, made more brooding by guest MC Aynzli Jones and opener, 'Ooh Yeah' has a synthy groove that eases us in gently. There is filler on the album, as you would generally expect with a 14 track work. '257.zero' never really gets going and as the album draws to a close 'The Degenerates' and 'Mothers Of The Night'are far too reminiscent of something from Play wth the samples removed - nice enough but ultimately not very interesting. It seems that if Moby can fully lay to rest the ghosts of Play, then we may be in for a treat, in the meantime, there's enough here to get people back to the dance floors.

Harry Powell

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