Moby, “Resound NYC.”

The latest album from electronic artist Moby, Resound NYC, may be a direct follow-up to 2021’s Reprise, but this new reimagining of his earlier songs largely throws the traditional symphonic form of orchestral music out the window. These songs are equally bluesy, jazzy and even poppy.

What connects these 15 reworks—14 Moby originals and a Neil Young cover—is how un-symphonic most of them sound and how the artist born Richard Melville Hall either wrote or recorded them in New York between the years 1994 and 2010. That is, other than the cover, which he vividly remembers his mother playing for him when he was 3 or 4 and growing up in New York, even though the song is by a Canadian and about Ontario.

“An orchestra can be anything; it can be whatever the composer wants it to be,” Moby has said of the album. “So rather than having every song receive the same orchestral treatment, I kind of built a bespoke orchestral approach for each song.” So while some songs have string flourishes or grandiose timpani-like percussion, a clarinet or other woodwind creating space or mood, there’s just as likely to be either traditional rock instruments, synths or even a mellotron.

Resound NYC kicks off in grand fashion on “In My Heart,” with the original rolling piano part now fuller and reverb-laden. Symphonic strings and a rock beat quickly come into the fold, as well as the rich and deep voice of California Central Valley jazz musician Gregory Porter. The song, from 2002’s 18, is slightly faster and definitively more emphatic, especially when choir vocals are added, and it seems to pick up even more steam.

Porter is one of several notable guest vocalists on the album. Ricky Wilson of Britpop band Kaiser Chiefs guests on two songs. “South Side,” from 1999’s seminal Play, is a highlight. The foreboding industrial elements and grinding guitar line are replaced by a bright brass section, jazz trumpet and the wacka-wacka of funk guitar. It’s kind of like Moby envisioned by the Buena Vista Social Club. Where’s Gregory Porter on this one?

Wilson also appears on “The Perfect Life,” which was originally on Moby’s 2013 album, Innocents, though as original collaborator Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips told us way back when, it was written years earlier. This one includes some new accents in percussion, guitar noodling and synths; it’s in a different key. There’s another bright brass part during an instrumental bridge that most stands out, but it’s not a stark departure from the original as “South Side” is.

The other song that retains the grandiosity of the original, or even brings it up a notch, is 18‘s “Extreme Ways” (the “Bourne” films theme song), featuring Doug Mandagi of the Temper Trap. As with this album’s opener, the sound is turned into a bigger wall of sound with swelling strings, as well as brass and a choir. Mandagi adds additional textures to the vocals, sometimes singing in falsetto. Like “The Perfect Life,” it’s not a stark departure.

On the other side of the spectrum are the bluesier tracks, like “Flower (Find My Baby),” which combines a Play track and its B-side (with samples of samples “Joe Lee’s Rock” by Boy Blue). The originals sounded like long-lost treasures found while crate-digging. This new version featuring the low voice of Amythyst Kiah (who like Porter also appeared on Reprise) and the driving rhythm section sounds like a modern blues rocker.

Another gem is “Run On,” originally from Play, which feels wholly re-done. It’s slower, more soulful, without the traditional Moby electronica signature. The vocals are handled not only by Danielle Ponder but by her father, Elijah Ponder. Together, the three of them honor the original 1949 song on which Moby’s song was based: “Run On for a Long Time” by Bill Landford and the Landfordairs, as well as the standard “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.”

Album closer “Walk With Me,” from 2009 album Wait for Me, is stripped of glossy synths, instead relying on hypnotic snare strikes, guitar strumming and a dirge-like one-note cello. Lady Blackbird handles the soulful vocals here.

Moby peels back some of the instrumentation and adds two minutes of runtime to “Signs Of Love,” one of a few songs he sings himself. While still melodic and almost ambient, it at times sounds more like a lo-fi rock song. He accomplishes the same vibe on “Slipping Away,” from 2005’s Hotel, which is now kicked off not by electronic percussion but an acoustic guitar before adding strings to join the understated vocal delivery (think The Shins). And “When It’s Cold I’d Like To Die,” 1995’s Everything Is Wrong, is now a beautifully sad, acoustic number led by piano, the heartbreaking vocals of P.T. Banks and more swelling strings.

“Hyenas,” from 2008’s Last Night, is also an extended rendition (from about three and a half minutes to six). Here, Moby keeps the melody dark and intriguing like the original, with hazy synths, yet the song finds a way to sound different. The title track from that album sounds less lounge-y and more jazzy; the synths replaced by noirish piano lines and light cymbal strikes. Moby should really make a jazz album next.

“Second Cool Hive,” the reworked version of “First Cool Hive,” off Everything Is Wrong, is altered enough to stay interesting, yet I wouldn’t call it any more orchestral (despite the presence of strings) than other Moby standards. The contribution of Moroccan vocalist Oum stands out, while hornist Sarah Willis feels a bit buried in the mix.

Finally, the cover of Neil Young’s “Helpless,” which the icon recorded with CSNY, is a true outlier six songs into the album; it is a slightly twangy lament, with strings, woodwinds, slow guitar strumming and singing by Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Timmins and indie singer-songwriter Damien Jurado. There may be a French horn in there as well. It’s really unlike anything else on this album, and its inclusion as a formative memory for Moby grounds the album as an intimate and personal affair.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.