Moby has just come out with a terrific follow up to his 1995 techno classic "Everything is Wrong." Titled "Play", it blends black gospel and blues samplings with the customary synthesizer and electronic percussion typical of this genre. As in his first album, Moby adds his own vocals and guitar work on top of the mix.

Techno is the kind of music played at discos and "raves". Meant to be trance-inducing, it relies on a heavy ostinato effect of the kind used effectively by Ravel in Bolero, a prototype for techno. It probably got its initial inspiration from the German group Kraftwerk, who wrote ironic icy hymns to the modern technological age such as "Homecomputer", "Pocket Calculator" and "Radioactivity". Classical music minimalism has also had a major impact on techno, especially Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Glass has recorded with David Bowie and a group of DJ's have just recorded a not very good CD of disco versions of Reich classics such as "Suite for 18 Musicians". I suspect that minimalist Gavin Bryars has influenced the conception behind Moby's latest. Bryar's composition "Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet" is a 15 minute variation on the street song of a tramp, who is sampled throughout the piece.

Moby does the same sort of thing with his sampling of Vera Hall's "Trouble So Hard", a gospel song recorded in the field by Alan Lomax, as well as "Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad" by the Shining Light Gospel Choir. Of course, none of this would be worthy of attention if the music wasn't inspired. And inspired it is.

The other noteworthy thing about Moby is his outspoken left politics which have a completely different character than Rage Against the Machine's militancy. Moby is a vegan, Christian, pacifist, environmentalist and anticapitalist. In the liner notes to "Everything is Wrong", his first record, he includes "facts that I've collected". Among them are: From 1960-1985 over 40% of the Central American rainforests were destroyed to create grazing land for cattle; the United States imports over 100,000 tons of beef from Central America each year; it takes a 23 gallons of water to produce a pound of tomatoes; it takes 5,214 gallons to produce a pound of beef.

In the liner notes to "Play", he denounces anti-abortionists despite his Christian beliefs. "Speaking of those who preach hate and violence, I need to say how absolutely horrified and sickened I am by supposed Christians who promote the use of violence against abortion clinics, doctors, the federal government and anybody else who rubs them the wrong way."

There is very little question that if a mass socialist movement emerges in the US, artists like Moby and Rage Against the Machine will find a way into it, just as Paul Robeson participated in the broad radical movement of the 1930s and 40s and artists like Milton Nascimento campaign for the Workers Party in Brazil today.

Moby has a webpage at http://www.moby.org. Check it out.