Musician and activist Moby is thrilled to announce that acclaimed soul-jazz singer-songwriter Lady Blackbird, with whom he collaborated on recent critically acclaimed album always centered at night and 2023’s Resound NYC, will be joining him on his first tour in over a decade across Europe/UK this September. Several dates have already sold out, and 100% of his tour profits will go to European animal rights organizations.
The tour will feature his greatest hits, including classics such as “Porcelain,” “Natural Blues” and “Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?”, taken from the album Play which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year and has sold over 12 million copies worldwide, winning numerous awards and becoming the biggest-selling electronic album of all time.
Earlier this month, Moby released his latest album always centered at night, which features Lady Blackbird on the lead single "dark days," a defiant, rhythmic work propelled by her alluring, deep vocals and earnest soul.
2024 stands to be another big year for Moby where past endeavors and innovative future music coalesce, still pioneering, with activism at the forefront of everything he does. Always centered at night–the album–is the continuation of the project of the same name that Moby announced in 2022. He saw this project as a similar service to the idiosyncratic New York record shops that he frequented in the late 1980s, where he’d hear something recondite and exciting and it would open up whole new worlds. always centered at night was his way of working with special writers and vocalists to make songs inspired by the spirit of musical discovery.
In his pursuit of new sounds, Moby has become something of a collector of voices. He’s a connoisseur of the timbre and texture of human vocal chords, whether sampling artists like Bessie Jones, Vera Hall or Boy Blue on Play, or working with superstars like David Bowie, Ozzy Osborne and Britney Spears: “I’m always looking. Sometimes it’s about going on YouTube. Sometimes it’s Spotify. Other times, it’s just walking around Lower Manhattan going to karaoke places, where I’ve actually found a couple of singers. It’s this constant process of looking for voices, and getting excited and inspired when I find a wonderful voice.”
These are often personal songs, and the personal is the political, as is the border-defying nature of the work. Moreover, they’re crepuscular, conceived at twilight, with many of the styles of the last 30 years in electronic music coming to the fore, such as the trip-hoppy "we’re going wrong" featuring Brie O’Banion, the broken beat, almost drum ‘n’ bass influenced "medusa" (with the aforementioned Aynzli Jones), or the Latin house of "feelings come undone" with Raquel Rodriguez.
Since its inception–that has also included collaborations with José James, "ache for," and Akemi Fox "fall back" it has amassed collective streams of over 15M across platforms. All 13 collaborations are collected together here for the first time.
Moby is a multi-platinum-selling, multi-award-winning singer, songwriter, producer, author, and animal rights activist. He has been a vegan and vegan activist for 35 years and last year released his directorial debut Punk Rock Vegan Movie via his production company Little Walnut, a passionate and stylistically idiosyncratic look at the ongoing relationship between the worlds of punk rock and animal rights. It includes interviews with some of the biggest names in punk and rock history.
See Moby live in Europe and UK this September with tickets on sale now here with support from Lady Blackbird. Moby's new album, always centered at night featuring a remarkable host of collaborators, is out everywhere now.
