The disc starts off with Flower, the B-side of the Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad single. It’s a stomping, chanting gospel number in the tradition of Play’s first disc, full of lumbering Zeppelin-style drums and jerky piano chords. The vocals shine the most when Moby drops out the backing track and we can hear the singers clapping in time with their chant. Sunday, one of the tracks on the Bodyrock single, is old-school trance. Synth echoes and distant piano fade in and out of an athletic four-four beat. Perfect highway hypnosis music, it’s Bodyrock on Xanax, a great comedown off the A-side.
The Natural Blues single is backed with Whispering Wind, a moody, sparse song reminiscent of the material on Air’s latest album 10,000Hz Legend. It’s virtually the sonic opposite of Natural Blues; instead of one raw-voiced gospel singer, Whispering Wind uses multiple layers of serene computerized vocals. Where Natural Blues pulsed purposefully along, Whispering Wind drifts. It’s the calm after Natural Blues’ storm.
The Sun Never Stops Setting backs the South Side single. It’s much different to the slinky A-side; this track is devoid of any percussion at all. It’s simply a soothing, multicolored wash of sound. Still, its mood is too relaxed, not rich enough, for Play.
On the B side of Porcelain is Summer. The beginning of the track, with its light, soulful jazz piano, sounds like it could be on a Peanuts soundtrack album. As the song progresses and the synths come in, it turns into elevator music for the space age. I wish this was my hold music.
Porcelain’s also backed with Flying Over The Dateline, a drum-n-bass trance track. This same mood of Moby’s produced Sunday, and it’s easy to see why these songs didn’t make it onto Play. While they’re incredible pieces of music, they’re too sparse, their emotion too muted, to easily fit into such an openly passionate album. The same goes for Summer and Running. These songs are best listened to sitting half-asleep on a transatlantic flight; Play is best danced to, frenetically and transportingly, like Moby does when he’s performing it.
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