Moby’s next album is named Reprise and he’s re-worked his earlier hits for an orchestra and teamed up with an interesting mix of collaborators.

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Scheduled for release on esteemed classical label Deutsche Grammophon, the new record breathes new life in some of your favourite Moby hits, by adding an interesting mix of voices.

Natural Blues from Moby’s multi-million selling Play album is one of the tunes being given a new lease of life. For this version he brings in vocalists Gregory Porter and Amythyst Kiah.

While Porter is a well known soul singer with his own successful career, Kiah is a lesser known quantity. Moby has shared that he came across her when someone sent him a YouTube clip of Kiah singing Vera Hall’s Trouble So Hard, soon the two were in the studio recording vocals for his new orchestral take on one of his biggest hits.

The next step was to reach out to soul singer Gregory Porter to see if he would also be interested in singing on the new version of the song, and then they added percussion, guitars, piano and a string quartet. The big step though was to add a full orchestra, which was recorded in Budapest.

The final element was to add a gospel choir, but as the Covid-19 pandemic hit, Moby realised social distancing was going to make recording a choir very challenging. The solution was to record every singer in the choir individually, and then mix them together – a massive task.

Across the new album Moby revisits tune from throughout his long career including early success Go, as well as Porcelain featuring the vocals of Jim James from My Morning Jacket, and new versions of Extreme Ways, We Are All Made of Stars, Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad and Life Me Up.

Moby teams up with Icelandic pianist Vikingur Ólafsson for a new take of God Moving Over the Face of the Waters, while The Lonely Night is performed with Kris Kirstofferson and Mark Lanegan.

The album also includes a cover of David Bowie’s Heroes. Bowie and Moby were close friends, and lived in the same street in New York.

Timed to coincide with the release of the new album is Moby Doc, a film looking into his journey from his teenage years to international superstar. Moby has previously shared his journey via two autobiographies Play and Everything Falls Apart. 

Reprise is released on 28th May.

OIP Staff

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