Speakers & VIPs

Moby

Born Richard Melville Hall and nicknamed Moby after his great-great-grand uncle Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick, Moby’s first musical awakenings were punk rock and new wave-inspired. He played drums with hardcore punks The Vatican Commandos before moving to New York in the late 1980s, where he released a number of dance singles and EPs for independent label Instinct.

Moby’s career has been a story of extremes and paradoxes. This intense, driven individual has been a hip underground New York DJ and a punk rock drummer, a determinedly ascetic maker of euphoric dance music, a highly aware environmentalist and social commentator who jumps around stage like a dervish and, finally, a sharply astute advocate of alternative lifestyles who became arguably the biggest dance music star on the globe.

His first single to attract interest outside of the insular New York dance scene was “Go,” which fused a hypnotic techno beat to the signature string passage from David Lynch’s cult TV series of the time, Twin Peaks. It reached Number 10 in Britain.

Moby continued to release mesmerising, often hard-edged techno tracks through the early 1990s, signing a UK deal with Mute in 1993. Moby’s 1995 album Everything Is Wrong, gained critical acclaim in America and spawned one of his trademark songs – the giddy, celebratory this-is-now catharsis of “Feeling So Real.” Other albums include 1999’s Play, which to date has sold 10 million copies, 2002’s 18, and 2005’s Hotel.

Moby’s ambient yet compelling music has always had a cinematic aspect, and his tracks have appeared in many films, including Cool World, Scream, The Bourne Identity, Heat, Gone In Sixty Seconds, and Tomorrow Never Dies.

Moby’s latest album Go: The Very Best Of Moby compiles 15 songs from his unique back catalogue, including seminal tracks from albums like Play and 18, as well as the brand new, previously unavailable track “New York, New York.”

Having just turned 40, a landmark that he confesses engendered “approximately five minutes of absolute panic,” Moby has an extraordinary career behind him, as evidenced by the remarkable body of work that is Go: The Very Best of Moby. The chances are he has an even more spectacular resume to come. As politically and socially engaged as ever, Moby is facing the future with confidence and an informed, and very open mind