In recent interviews with Moby that I’ve been reading the exact same sentiments are repeated every single time. The success behind the infamously-licensed Play (whored in adverts and such simply because it was the only way to gain exposure to the tracks because radios wouldn’t play the songs until the album had become famous) and the subsequent popularity caught a confused Richard Hall completely by surprise and he was sucked into the world of being big and famous which eventually began affecting his music – 2005’s Hotel was Moby’s attempt to create a slick, big commercial radio album but the project turned out to succeed so well that he felt the album had lost its soul as he listened to the finished creation. Ever since the world tour after Hotel the ‘accidental professional musician’ has taken steps back and navel-gazing for what he wants rather than what he’s expected to do in his situation. The low-publicity DJ tours harkened back to the man’s early days as a club DJ and last year’s Last Night was an (slightly uneven) attempt to nutshell over two decades of living and clubbing in New York City as a loveletter to the town. The new album Wait for Me completes the process. It’s effectively self-released, the promotional push is mainly online through the man’s own website rather than everywhere in media, it was recorded in Moby’s own apartment and features his close friends in guest vocals, and it has been labeled by the artist himself as an album for himself with no care as to how it’ll be accepted by others.

Like a lot of deeply personal albums, Wait for Me is fragile. It contains only a few more energetic moments and even those are washed with sadness. Its 16 tracks are contemplative and calm, guided by melody and mood. Rather than crafting something big enough to sound like a hit or to fill a club with dancing people, Wait for Me is made for dark rooms, solitude and headphones. It’s the only way to enjoy it – in a more distractive environment its steadily low pace and delicate sounds tend to get lost.

Wait for Me is in all ways an album rather than just a collection of songs. For every moment that stands out in a larger way, hinting of singles or just generally stronger tracks, you have a song that acts as an intro or an interlude between two tracks, a more subtler moment that gets lost in the group but yet sounds like an integral part of it. “JLTF” wouldn’t start as wonderfully without the intro “JTLF-1″, the way “Division” opens the entire album with its melancholy strings is an essential part of the process of the flow. It doesn’t mean that you couldn’t crop a few of the weaker, more crushed down tracks (e.g. “A Seated Night” and “Ghost Return” that are not particularly memorable even if they are very pretty) but those tracks never sound bothersome in the album’s context.

Wait for Me is largely instrumental and in that respect, its sound is even more important than usual. The signature ‘Mobystrings’ cover most of the tracks in their solemn beauty, often accompanied by piano or keyboards as well as a low, soft bass riff and a simple drum pattern carrying the rhythm. The pre-album freebie “Shot in the Back of the Head” decorates itself with a ragged guitar and an acoustic guitar appears occasionally, the most wonderfully in the subtly speedy “Scream Pilots” which later covers the baseline guitar riff with glimmering keyboards. “Slow Light” revisits the concept of Animal Rights standout “Living” in its simple structure that constantly grows in intensity until becoming larger than life. Like the pre-album speculation was, Wait for Me carries in the vein of Moby’s past solemn moments of beauty. The difference being that now they’re the sole focus on the album.

When vocals do appear, they’re almost without exception a calm female voice with an ache in their heart. Male vocals only appear in a few parts – Moby himself sings the album’s most energetic moment, the frantic and broken “Mistake” that builds up from a simple plead for one’s lover returning into a confessional, self-loathing, self-accusatory atonement awashed with quiet rage and desperation while the music grows in similar intensity. “Study War” on the other hand samples an anti-war speech which later meets a duet partner on female vocals. The other highlights of the sung songs are the lead single “Pale Horses” that in so many ways nutshells a lot what the album is about and the dream-like float “JFTL”. The album title track’s change from a teary piano-driven piece into the string-swooping arch of sadness is also a glorious sight.

A lot of Wait for Me is very, very lovely. It’s beautiful, heartstruck, absolutely gorgeous. Yet ever since its release and countless amounts of listening it still mystifies me and I can’t pinpoint why. If you think about it in some sort of weird subjecto-objective sense, Wait for Me should be a fantastic album but there’s something in it that doesn’t quite seem right. Maybe it’s that in the sixteen track it possesses it carries a few weaker tracks that could even be said to be boring in right circumstances. Maybe it’s that 51 minutes of subtle, fragile moodiness that doesn’t have lots of change in sound in pace ends up sogging the final moments slightly. There’s no denying that Wait for Me is a great album – its peaks are massive and overall it’s a wonderfully melancholy and beautiful work – but you can’t help but shake the feeling that maybe it could have been even greater.

That said, Wait for Me is still a solidly enjoyable piece of work from a man whose discography is in large parts full of slightly uneven albums. It’s not going to top Play but it’s somewhere in Moby’s best works.

Pale Horses

MP3: JLTF
MP3: Scream Pilots

Buy Wait for Me from Amazon UK / US

Tags: Moby

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