Looking back on 30 years as one of America's most prominent electronic musicians, Moby made a surprise move to reimagine classics from his lengthy catalog as orchestral and acoustic reworkings. Inspired by a 2018 performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, he delivered Reprise, a triumphant career retrospective that breathes new life into familiar hits and deep cuts. Reaching all the way back to his 1992 debut, Moby amplifies his percussion-heavy breakthrough single "Go" into a dramatic tribal raver, ...
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Looking back on 30 years as one of America's most prominent electronic musicians, Moby made a surprise move to reimagine classics from his lengthy catalog as orchestral and acoustic reworkings. Inspired by a 2018 performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, he delivered Reprise, a triumphant career retrospective that breathes new life into familiar hits and deep cuts. Reaching all the way back to his 1992 debut, Moby amplifies his percussion-heavy breakthrough single "Go" into a dramatic tribal raver, while Everything Is Wrong's cosmic "God Moving Over the Face of the Water" expands even further with the grandiose backing of Icelandic pianist Vikingur Ólafsson. The best of the instrumentals on Reprise, however, is the de facto overture "Everloving," whose cinematic sweep is absolutely breathtaking. In fact, this and the other tracks selected from his 1999 magnum opus Play are the most effective transformations here, allowing that album's soul- and gospel-heavy sampling to organically draw out the emotion and humanity on this project. The mournful "Natural Blues" is a showstopper, elevating the original's melancholy to stirring effect as Gregory Porter and Amythyst Kiah lament, "Oh Lordy, my trouble's so hard." The plaintive reflections on "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad" benefit from the soulful vocals of Apollo Jane, Deitrick Haddon, and gospel choir the Samples, descending into pain before hope shines a light with the inspirational chorus. And while the ethereal "Porcelain" merges a wounded duet between Moby and My Morning Jacket's Jim James, the true heft is found in the expansive orchestral arrangement, which pulls aside the veil to reveal a grandeur at which the original only hinted. These varying degrees of pain and catharsis are at the heart of Reprise, manifesting in a vulnerable reworking of David Bowie's "Heroes," a version that Moby notes he played with his late friend in 2001, and 18's dirge-like "Extreme Ways." Emotional rock bottom is reached on the Innocents cut "The Lonely Night," wherein a worn-out Mark Lanegan and Kris Kristofferson face mortality in a way that echoes Johnny Cash's twilight take on Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt." Through the tears and heartache, Moby offers a few uplifting reworkings, namely the epic "We Are All Made of Stars" -- which he styled as a classic rock opera in scope and progression -- and "Lift Me Up," which transforms the transcendent original with a cacophonous chorus of voices, horn blasts, and galloping percussion. By toning down the euphoric dancefloor bliss of these often-repetitive techno anthems, the songs breathe and move in ways like never before. Reprise is a bold late-career gem that legitimizes Moby's brand of electronic music by extracting the existing emotions that always dwelled beneath the digital soundscapes, revealing a heart that was always there but is now on full glorious display. ~ Neil Z. Yeung, Rovi
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