Moby’s “Last Night” combines chaos, disorientation, romance and flashing lights – all elements of going out in New York City – to create an ode of sorts to his beloved pastime. With pivotal ups and downs, it plays like a night in the city lost, as Moby puts it in the liner notes of the album, “in an ocean of other people at 3:00am.”
Like the first scene in “Saturday Night Fever,” where we see John Travolta’s character getting pumped up before going out dancing, album-opener “Ooh Yea” is full of itself from start to finish, but in a good way. Its techno vibe is filtered through heavy disco beats, splitting synths and digital vocals.
“I Love to Move in Here”, like the first drink of the night, sees the protagonist scoping out the scene in his first destination. Blending the vibes of ’90s hip-hop and lounge music with abrupt synthetic cheers from a crowd, this track gets you in the mood for what is to come on the remainder of the album.
With “257.zero”, a smooth techno-electro pop track featuring a trippy female voice counting down to who knows what, Moby finally gets us on the dance floor. And he keeps us there with “Everyday It’s 1989” – a ’90s dance flashback whose drums share a freakish likeness to Technotronic’s “Pump Up the Jam.”
Here the album begins to lull, like many eight-hour nights of clubbing tend to do at times. Darker tracks “Live for Tomorrow”, “Alice” and the sexy “Hyenas” all share a sleepy quality without totally losing their appeal – the night’s beginning to slow, so it might be time to move on to another club.
Things begin to heat up again with the strong female vocals of “Disco Lies”, a heavy-hitting, tribal track with tons of early ’90s influence; and the disorienting “The Stars”, which brings together both the highs and lows of a night out with up-tempo beats, synth and a jarring stop-go rhythm.
Nearing the end of the album, “Degenerates”, “Sweet Apocalypse” and “Mothers of the Night” – despite their mind-bending charm – tend to lag a bit, even if they represent some of the more prolific tracks on the album.
The album’s closer and title track (which features a chilling secret song) pulls it all together for what might perfectly represent the walk home after a long night of drinking and dancing, when reality begins to sink in. Atop eerie underwater sounds and sonic strings, a hopeless voice sings “If this be my last night on earth, let me remember this for all that it’s worth,” and hopefully listeners will do just that.
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