One of the nice things about being a decade past your commercial (and arguably artistic) peak is that you can discover what turns on your true fans. The post-rave cultural context that made his 1999 record Play a worldwide smash feels more distant than ever, but Moby has yet to stop reliably cranking out a new LP every few years. (Wait For Me is actually his second in the last two.) This consistency makes you assume that somebody's still anticipating the latest post-chill out communique from the world of Richard Melville Hall. His U.S. sales may have slipped from multi-platinum to gold to satisfactory, but that just means Moby's able to provide his core listenership with exactly what they want.
Coming so soon after Last Night-- the 2008 "return" to high-energy electronic dance from an artist who's never been fully committed to either fast tempos or pure disco-- Wait For Me is more in line with the soft-focus alt-rock of 2005's Hotel, itself taking off from the singer-songwritery side of Play and 18, with blessedly fewer turns from the man himself at the mic. Perhaps he realized his shoegaze-lite stabs at semi-pop songwriting are better suited to wispy lady vocals than his own everyvegan monotone mumble, because there are plenty of tracks on Wait For Me that feature generic, feathery coos.
Wait For Me shuffles through two decades' worth of records from the sections of Moby's collection marked "easy-listening indie rock" and "easy-listening dance music": bedroom-friendly sorta-techno that's like a low-fat version of prog house's voluptuous synths ("Walk With Me") and portentous string arrangements ("Division"); vaguely post-punk influenced songwriting, like Joy Division with all the menace and weight scraped away until nothing but a vague, twangy ennui remains ("Mistake"); instrumental miniatures like Satie shoved into 90s ambient dress ("JLTF 1"); and ethereal textures out the wazoo. (And of course, being a post-Play Moby album, the prerequisite breakbeat-plus-bluesy-African-American-sample track, "Study War".) It's all very beautiful in places, but the kind of beauty that's next to impossible to dredge from your memory even a few minutes after track 16 winds down.
Again and again, Wait For Me offers some truly gorgeous sounds-- the guy who worked wonders with the "Twin Peaks" theme all those years ago hasn't lost his way with a shivery snatch of pseudo-melody-- with very little bothering to tie them together into anything like songs, unless unwavering stoner-tempo beat counts. Wait For Me is an exceptionally pleasant album, which is in no way intended to be sarcastic. It just never strives to be anything more than prettified soundtrack-in-waiting stuff, lacking the memorable-on-the-first-listen hooks (M83) or over the top grandeur (Sigur Rós) of other acts who've explored similar sounds in the last 10 years. And even as ambient, or new age nostalgia, it lacks the textural richness that inspires listeners to repeatedly dive into such seemingly "static" discographies as Wolfgang Voigt's Gas project.
For those outside the Moby cult, Wait For Me is background music in the purest sense, an album of mood-buoying sketches best suited to provide color to otherwise bland scenes (working, studying, waiting on the phone with the cable company, getting your hair did, etc.) from your daily life. It's too listenable overall to be outright dismissed as some sort of flop. But it's too willfully unobtrusive and happy with its lack of ambition to try and sell as good pop, even in a year thin on the mediocre kind.
