HOTEL - Moby

THE man has been moving around the word quite a bit and living in hotels, and aptly he has named his fifth studio album Hotel.

Known to many as the world's greatest electronica extraordinaire, Richard Melville Hall, a.k.a. Moby, has recorded another beautifully eclectic top spinner.

Hotel was recorded and mixed during 2004 and is currently leading the European sales chart.

Unlike his other efforts, which focus on the dance genre, the music this time round is more diverse. The 39-year-old bachelor has stretched his own boundaries from quiet instrumentals, to stadium anthems, to downtown sultry jams, uplifting electro-disco, New Age, ambient and ballads.

In Hotel, Moby's voice is featured in 10 out of the 14 tracks in the album, with two instrumentals and two duets with the heavenly voice of Laura Dawn, famous for her seductive and passionate debut album Believer, a collection of songs illustrating her early years in New York City.

Dawn is also the cultural director for the politically leftist group MoveOn.org and a close friend of Moby. And this time round the album has no voice samples.

To start it all off is Hotel Intro, which is your typical Moby-esque instrumental track - starting off slow while picking up the pace towards the end.

Diversity comes into play quiet early in this album as the second track, Raining Again, with Dawn on guest vocals and live drums by the phenomenal Scott Frassetto, showers listeners with trippy New Age wholesome goodness.

Magnificent electric guitar riffs is found in the next song, Beautiful, while Lift Me Up reminds you of those groovy disco days.

Next up is the glorious ballad Where You End, followed closely by Temptation, with Dawn on lead vocals, which makes her sound like a cross between Kim Deal and Dusty Springfield, a voice that goes from a breathy purr to a soulful wail.

Evidence of Moby's brilliance is aplenty in this album, with Oriental elements in track seven, Spiders and love ballad Lie To Me with Dawn.

The songs start to get ferociously upbeat in the electro-dance track Very, with Dawn once again on lead vocals, and the hypnotically charged I Like It.

The balding, bespectacled outspoken musician hits the piano keys on the slow ballad Love Should, while Slipping Away could very well be the next pop rock anthem.

This is followed closely by Forever, another superb Moby-esque piece.

The last track, the slow but soul nourishing Homeward Angel, and the bonus hidden track, 35 Minutes, a violin and keyboard instrumental outro, brings an end to Moby's most outstanding album yet to date. - NST 03/04/2005