aaamusic | On 16, Feb 2011

MOBY

DESTROYED – NEW ALBUM & PHOTO BOOK OUT MAY 16th
FREE DIGITAL EP – BE THE ONE
PHOTO EXHIBITION AT PROUD GALLERIES, CAMDEN
LIVE AT THE ROUNDHOUSE, CAMDEN, 2nd JUNE

Destroyed, Moby’s new album and book of photography, is set for release on May 16th. Self-released on his own label Little Idiot, Destroyed will be available on CD, vinyl, and digital formats. The album will also be included as a CD with the Destroyed photography book out May 16th. Published by Damiani, the hardback edition of Destroyed is 128 pages and features 55 photographs taken by Moby all over the world.

To celebrate the release of his ninth studio album, a free digital EP featuring three songs from Destroyed will be available for download at moby.com from today. In addition, a trilogy of short films directed by Moby for each of the tracks will be released online.

Destroyed is a behind-the-scenes international odyssey with Moby, introducing us to a side of touring that is often unexposed; secluded time spent in artificial spaces like hotel rooms, airports, and backstage waiting areas. The album and photo book combination provides an intimate look at Moby’s world and his creative process as an artist, both the music and photos were created in the same period and draw inspiration from the strange and sublime world of touring.

Moby’s songs from Destroyed were written late at night in hotel rooms around the world. A soundtrack for empty cities at 2AM, Destroyed evokes nocturnal feelings of both anxious isolation and the comfort of quiet solitude. The result is a 15-track collection that conflates the atmospheric and the disconcerting with the enveloping and beautiful – a record rich in the kind of melodies that are lodged in the brain by stealth rather than with a bludgeon.

Produced by Moby and mixed by Ken Thomas (who has worked with everyone from David Bowie and Queen to Sigur Ros and M83), Destroyed was recorded using vintage analog equipment and mixed on a 1972 Neve mixing desk from Abbey Road. A cohesive body of work, Destroyed is best experienced in its entirety and late at night when the city has gone to sleep.

Moby has been taking pictures as long as he’s been making music; and to this day he carries camera wherever he goes. The title and front cover of Destroyed depicts the final part of an LED security warning: Unattended luggage will be destroyed, which Moby snapped as it flashed up in a deserted hallway at New York’s La Guardia airport. Explains Moby, “One of my goals through my pictures is to take the normal and present it as odd and to take the odd and present it as normal.”

To celebrate the release of the book, Moby will be exhibiting the full selection of photographs at Proud Galleries in Camden from 18th May – 19th June. Moby’s next UK live performance is scheduled for 2nd June at The Roundhouse in Camden, London, go to www.moby.com/live for tickets.

www.moby.com