![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/MOBY-SPOTLIGHT-May-2011.jpg\" "\\"MOBY-SPOTLIGHT-May-2011\\"")
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Long after the last song has finished and the fans have gone home, electronica kingpin Moby often finds himself alone in hotel rooms, unable to sleep. Until a few years ago he\u2019d turn to alcohol. But now that he\u2019s given that up, he is finding new ways to cope with boredom and insomnia on the road. Heading into his last world tour, Moby had an idea: If you can\u2019t escape sleeplessness, why not document it? Thus was born Destroyed<\/em>, a joint music and photography project he worked on as he traveled, saving his sanity in the process. \u201cI was giving myself something to occupy myself with in hotel rooms,\u201d Moby says, \u201cso I didn\u2019t end up like Martin Sheen in the beginning of Apocalypse Now<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Like its companion book of photos, the Destroyed<\/em> album captures the strange beauty of cities after dark. More trancelike and atmospheric than \u201cGo,\u201d \u201cSouth Side\u201d and his other thumping dance hits, the songs suggest blinking traffic lights, deserted office buildings and one very tired musician at a computer. Moby demoed his material on his laptop, using vintage drum machines, synths and vocoders, and later fleshed out the recordings at his New York City studio. \u201cThe songs have their genesis in European hotel rooms late at night when I suffered insomnia,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit odd to remember what that feeling was like, but I\u2019ve had that experience so many times. I have a lot more memories of being exhausted than I do of being well-rested. It was easy to call upon that experience of being bone-tired and creating music.\u201d<\/p>\n With its languid tempos and disorienting textures, Destroyed<\/em> plays like a companion piece to Moby\u2019s previous album, 2009\u2019s Wait for Me<\/em>. The goal for both records was to create nuanced music suitable for everyday listening. \u201cI still love dance music, but it\u2019s very contextual,\u201d he says. \u201cBig, banging techno tracks make a lot of sense to me in a nightclub at 2 a.m., but they\u00a0don\u2019t make a lot of sense at home at 10 when I\u2019m making breakfast.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s unlikely the longtime New Yorker\u2019s recent move to sunny Los Angeles will influence his future music. \u201cThe parts that inspire me the most are the emptiness of the desert and the weirdness of Hollywood late at night, when it\u2019s desolate and strange and kind of empty,\u201d Moby says. \u201cI don\u2019t know that I\u2019ll necessarily start making warm, gentle folk-rock records.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2013Kenneth Partridge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MOBY An insomnia-prone electronica master explores the music of the night Long after the last song has finished and the fans have gone home, electronica kingpin Moby often finds himself alone in hotel rooms, unable to sleep. Until a few years ago he\u2019d turn to alcohol. But now that he\u2019s given that up, he is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[1634,2425,10156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3505,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3503\/revisions\/3505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}