''Reprise'' is the 19th studio album by American musician

Moby Richard Melville Hall (September 11, 1965), known professionally as Moby, is an American musician, songwriter, record producer, disc jockey, and animal rights activist. He has sold 20 million records worldwide. AllMusic considers him to be "amo ...

, released on May 28, 2021, by

Deutsche Grammophon Deutsche Grammophon (; DGG) is a German classical music record label that was the precursor of the corporation PolyGram. Headquartered in Berlin Friedrichshain, it is now part of Universal Music Group (UMG) since its merger with the UMG family of ...

. It features orchestral and acoustic arrangements of songs from his career, performed by the Budapest Art Orchestra, a string quartet, along with multiple guest artists.

Background

The album originates to when Moby attended a

Bryan Ferry Bryan Ferry (born 26 September 1945) is an English singer and songwriter. He became known as the frontman of the band Roxy Music and also launched a solo career. His voice has been described as an "elegant, seductive croon". He also established ...

concert in Los Angeles, where a booker for the

Los Angeles Philharmonic The Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil) is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. The orchestra holds a regular concert season from October until June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from ...

offered him the chance of performing live with the orchestra. This led to Moby's first ever concert with an orchestra, which took place in October 2018 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with conductor

Gustavo Dudamel Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez (born 26 January 1981) is a Venezuelan conductor. He is currently the music director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is scheduled to become the Music and Artistic ...

and Mayor

Eric Garcetti Eric Michael Garcetti (born February 4, 1971) is an American politician and diplomat who served as the List of ambassadors of the United States to India, United States ambassador to India from 2023 to 2025. He was the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles f ...

on piano. A representative from Deutsche Grammophon approached Moby backstage with the idea of making an orchestral album, and he leapt at the idea. About the idea of his own songs re-recorded the classical way, Moby said, "Sometimes you just want direct, honest communication. Using acoustic and classical instruments allows you to increase the chances that direct vulnerable communication will be there. I don't know if I achieved that with ''Reprise'', but that was the goal." After selecting a group of songs from his discography and preparing basic orchestral arrangements to accompany them at his home studio in

Los Feliz, Los Angeles Los Feliz (; Spanish for "The Féliz (family)", ) is a hillside neighborhood in the greater Hollywood area of Los Angeles, California, abutting Hollywood and encompassing part of the Santa Monica Mountains. The neighborhood is named after the ...

, initial sessions took place at East-West Studios in Los Angeles where tracks featuring piano, guitar, percussion, drums, and from a chamber orchestra were put down. When it came to recording the final orchestral parts, orchestras based in London, Berlin, and Memphis, Tennessee were considered but decided against. In the end, the Budapest Art Orchestra was chosen and Moby decided not to attend the sessions in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

in person as he preferred to hand over his arrangements to a professional orchestrator. On March 26, 2021, Moby announced the album, and released "Porcelain" on his YouTube channel on the same day.

Critical reception

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'' critic recalled that “the original tracks felt as though they were recorded under the adrenalin of artificial lights, but these reworkings are flooded with daylight. It’s as though Moby is opening the curtains after a party, smoothing down the soft furnishings and carefully placing the crockery in the sink. The tracks lose their tension but gain an orderly, classical frame.” According to Gary Ryan of ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

'', ''Reprise'' is “full of dignified reworkings that don’t offer too many surprises”. “By drilling down to the compositional basics of his songs and then divesting them of their interesting production flourishes, obyperversely makes them feel more like aural wallpaper.”

Track listing

Notes * All tracks are noted as "Reprise Version".

Personnel

Musicians *

– bass (1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14), guitars (1, 2, 5, 6, 8–14), piano (1, 3, 6, 8–10, 13, 14), synthesizer (2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 13), percussion (3), vocals (4, 5, 10, 11, 13), organ (5, 9),

Rhodes Rhodes (; ) is the largest of the Dodecanese islands of Greece and is their historical capital; it is the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, ninth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Administratively, the island forms a separ ...

(5), synth bass (10) * Joseph Trapanese – conductor * Tripp Beam – drums (1–5, 8–11, 13, 14) * Budapest Art Orchestra – orchestra * Apollo Jane – background vocals (2, 10), vocals (8) * The Samples – choir (2, 8, 10) * Jason White – choir conductor (2, 8, 10) *

Alex Acuña Alejandro Neciosup Acuña (born December 12, 1944), known professionally as Alex Acuña, is a Peruvian–American jazz drummer and percussionist. He has also worked as an educator at University of California, Los Angeles, and Berklee College of ...

– percussion (2–4, 8, 10) * Amythyst Kiah – vocals (2) * Gregory Porter – vocals (2) * Jim James – vocals (4) * Mindy Jones – vocals (6), background vocals (9, 10, 13) * Víkingur Ólafsson – piano (7) * Deitrick Haddon – additional vocals (8) *

Kris Kristofferson Kristoffer Kristofferson (June 22, 1936 – September 28, 2024) was an American singer, songwriter, and actor. He was a pioneering figure in the outlaw country movement of the 1970s, moving away from the polished Nashville sound and toward a m ...

– vocals (9) *

Mark Lanegan Mark William Lanegan (November 25, 1964 – February 22, 2022) was an American singer and songwriter. First becoming prominent as the lead singer for the early grunge band Screaming Trees, he was also known as a member of Queens of the Stone Age ...

– vocals (9) * Daron Murphy – background vocals (10) * Laura Dawn – background vocals (10) * Alice Skye – vocals (12) * Luna Li – vocals (12) * Nataly Dawn – vocals (12) * Darlingside – vocals (13, 14) * Novo Amor – vocals (13) *

Skylar Grey Holly Brook Hafermann (born February 23, 1986), known professionally as Skylar Grey, is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. In 2004, Grey signed a publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group and a recording contract w ...

– vocals (14) Technical * Moby – producer, recording engineer * Jonathan Nesvadba – co-producer, recording engineer * Joseph Trapanese – orchestra producer * Mark Wilder –

mastering engineer Mastering is a form of audio post production which is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the Audio mixing (recorded music), final mix to a data storage device called a master recording, the source ...

* Alan Meyerson – mixer * Sturla Mio Þórisson – recording engineer (7)

Charts

References

{{Moby 2021 albums Deutsche Grammophon albums Moby albums Budapest Art Orchestra albums