Moby Interview and Performance On Soundcheck [WNYC Video and Audio]

Moby played a live studio performance on WNYC's Soundcheck, showing off warm acoustic versions of tracks from his latest album Innocents. The album, which is a melancholic electronic feat, gets stripped down to the basics here, replacing synthesized tones with haunting violins and beautiful harmonies.

Stripped down, the songs maintain a similar feeling, which has been tough for Moby to do with his past, purely-electronic releases. "Most of the songs were written either with guitar or piano and I've had this ongoing sort of problem throughout my career... I grew up playing guitar, but then really fell in love with electronic music," Moby says. "I'd go on tour and I'd be utterly incapable of playing them live because they'd be so studio based. Or you'd be invited to do something like this, and like, 'How do you recreate electronic music acoustically?' So lately I've been writing all of the songs on acoustic guitar and then adding all of the sort of electronic elaboration on top of it."

His new album is also an intensely collaborative feat, featuring the Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, indie rocker Damien Jurado, and Canadian singer Cold Specks. In the studio, collaborative singer Kelli Scarr steals the set with a lounge piano styled version of "A Case For Shame." The video performance features Moby singing "A Perfect Life" and laughing along with his infant Goddaughter, who joined him and his band in the studio just to watch.

The full track list of the live performance is as follows:

1. A Case For Shame
2. Almost Home
3. The Perfect Life (featured in the video)
4. Natural Blues
5. The Poison Tree

Check out the rest of the 40 minute performance and interview, where Moby discusses the production and emotion of the album, as well as his life in Los Angeles, living next to David Lynch.

Source: Soundcheck