In these days of fly-by-night musicians, Moby is somewhat of an anomaly. his first solo release, Go (voted one of Rolling Stone's top 200 records of all time), was released in 1991. In the ensuing 14 years he has had what is arguably the strangest career in contemporary music. he has made dance records and rock records and ambient records and heavy metal records.

He has written classical music for movies and had platinum albums in almost every country in the western world.

He has DJ'd in clubs for 100 people and headlined Glastonbury for 125,000 people. he has played punk rock in tiny bars in Germany

and he has performed at the closing ceremonies of the Olympics for an audience of 2 billion people. he has had albums

that have sold less than 100,000 copies worldwide (1996's Animal Rights'),and albums that have sold in the millions

(1999's play and 2002's '18'). he has remixed and produced everyone from david bowie to metallica to the beastie boys

to aerosmith to new order, etc. he has toured with david bowie. he has sung duets with elton john, bono, michael stipe,

lou reed, and many others. and yet he still makes all of his records at home in his bedroom.

Yes, Moby has without a doubt had one of the strangest careers in contemporary music.

His new album, Hotel, certainly continues in Moby's tradition of making beautifully eclectic records. it runs the gamut from

qu'entals ("Hotel Intro", "Homeward Angel") to big-chorus stadium anthems ("Spiders", "Lift Me Up") to straight-forward electro-disco

("Very") to ballads ("Anyone But You", "Forever",to new-wave ("Where You End"), and everything in between.

Moby has, as always, played every instrument on the cd (except for the live drums...his friend scott fassetto did that...)

and done all of the production. Moby also sings on almost every song, although he is joined on four songs by his friend Laura Dawn,

who is the cultural director for moveon.org.

To complete the idiosyncratic diversity of this package, Hotel is accompanied by "Hotel-Ambient", a beautiful and atmospheric collection ofinstrumentals that will relax even the most neurotic insomniac. oh, one last thing, whereas Moby's past records have relied heavily on samples, this record is actually completely sample-free.

Enjoy.

And if you're ever in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, stop by Moby's tea-shop, Teany, and say hello.

www.moby.com