On Resound NYC, Moby Reimagines and Orchestrates 15 of His Most Iconic NYC Tracks

Multi-platinum selling singer, songwriter and producer, Moby, releases his 20th studio album Resound NYC through Deutsche Grammophon. It is an orchestral rework of fifteen of his most iconic tracks written or recorded in New York from the years 1994 to 2010.

In February Moby launched Resound NYC with In This World featuring Marisha Wallace, which was followed by Walk With Me, featuring Lady Blackbird, Extreme Ways featuring Dougy Mandagi (Temper Trap) and South Side featuring Ricky Wilson (Kaiser Chiefs). Today he shares In My Heart, the album’s opening track, featuring stunning vocals from Gregory Porter. Other guest vocalists include Margo Timmins and Amythyst Kiah.

In My Heart was originally featured on Moby’s 6th studio album 18. Beautiful, sweeping strings open the uplifting gospel choir rework of this track. On working with Gregory Porter, Moby said, “one of the best things about not being a great singer is that it forces me to work with great singers, and Gregory is simply one of the greatest singers in the world.”

On working with Moby, Gregory Porter said, “It’s a pleasure to work again with Moby for ‘In My Heart’, and to be part of the revival of a classic. The message of leading with love and faith is universal.”

Resound NYC is the follow up to Moby’s acclaimed album Reprise (May, 2021), which featured guests including Kris Kristofferson, Mark Lanegan, Jim James, and Skylar Grey.

While many of the vocalists on Resound NYC are well-known names, others are less familiar: Moby discovered P.T. Banks singing in a wedding band in Texas, while the elderly father of mesmerizingly soulful Danielle Ponder joins her on the remake of “Run On”.

The music pioneer’s 20th studio album reflects perhaps the most defining era in Moby’s musical life, from his former home and birth place New York City. It was there he began his music career playing in punk rock bands, and dj’ing at underground clubs in and around New York.

After dj’ing and touring live through the 90’s, in 1999 Moby’s breakthrough album Play became not just a commercial success but a global phenomenon. He had already enjoyed hits with “Go”, “Feeling So Real”, and his version of the “James Bond Theme”, and had been asked to remix everyone from Michael Jackson to Freddie Mercury, but the smash hit Play changed everything. As we entered a new millennium, he turned electronic music on its head.

“Before I discovered punk rock, I grew up with classic rock,” says Moby. “My first concert was Yes at Madison Square Garden in 1978. So it was super compelling revisiting my songs and seeing whether they held up with a more traditional, non-electronic, orchestral approach.”

Revisiting his past whilst reimagining his future has resulted in Resound NYC., an album packed full of thrilling music, a classic reworking of definitive and era defining songs, once again reminding us of the incredible scope and relevance of Moby’s musical talent. (The original version of “When It’s Cold I’d Like to Die” recently featured in Netflix’s Stranger Things finale).

“An orchestra can be anything, it can be whatever the composer wants it to be,” Moby says. “So rather than having every song receive the same orchestral treatment, I kind of built a bespoke orchestral approach for each song.”

With Resound NYC, Moby reconsiders not just the evolution of his own work, but also a time, a place, and even a transformation in our world:

“When you think of the ’90s,” he says, “Bill Clinton was President; the rave scene was this utopian, idyllic world; the Soviet Union had ended; climate change was just an idea for a book that Al Gore was going to write. Back then, making music was this celebration of the potential that our world had, that our culture had. And now it's almost a refuge in an at times terrifying and apocalyptic world.”