Welcome to the latest edition of ‘Golden Vault’, where we delve into the annals of music to bring you a classic album. You’ll know some like the back of your hand and nothing of others. We hope to get you reacquainted with old friends and create new favourites. The album to be taken out of the Golden Vault for reappraisal this week is Moby's 'Play'.

Moby’s been in the news a lot lately. When he’s not posting on Instagram that the Trump administration is in collusion with the Russian government he’s comparing one’s relationship with vinyl to the love of that between a mother and a child. In addition to this he’s also been busy with new music, releasing 'These Systems are Falling' as part of his Moby and the Void Pacific Choir side-project and the ‘Black Lacquer’ EP, a Fool’s Gold compilation of remixes of songs from his back catalogue.

But what of ‘Play’, his magnum opus released just before the turn of the millennium that propelled him from a has-been techno musician (or at least in the eyes of much of the music media-Bono and Axl Rose claimed to be fans of his 1996 album, ‘Animal Rights’ so that shows what we know eh?) to a multi-platinum-selling superstar?

The year was 1998 and Moby (real name, Richard Melville Hall) had recently lost his mother to lung cancer, broken up with his long-term girlfriend partially as a result of panic attacks induced from taking LSD when he was younger, seen his fourth album (a punk-rock effort harnessing some of the influences from the bands he listened to as a teenager) largely flounder, both critically and commercially and in an abandonment of his faith, resorted to a life of alcoholism and dating strippers.

In the final chapter of ‘Porcelain: A Memoir’, his autobiography that was released last year, the protagonist is driving to Boston from his hometown of Darien, Connecticut to help a friend with a student film in which a sex shop gets taken over by aliens. As a cassette plays, he envisages moving back to Connecticut to “end up sitting on [his] futon, drinking Bud Light and watching Wheel of Fortune until [he] died of whatever disease would be merciful enough to kill [him]” while lamenting, “a dozen people might listen to this, [his] last album”.

Little did he know however that that cassette would form the nucleus of an album that would go platinum in over 20 countries and would serve as a springboard for a blossoming music career.

In his sleeve notes Moby gives special thanks to “the Lomaxes and all of the archivists and music historians whose field recordings made this record possible.” The album is packed with several folk and blues samples. Opener, the Mario Caldalto-produced, Honey (Beastie Boys) incorporates an a capella he heard on “Songs of the South”, a boxset by Alan Lomax (an ethnomusicologist and field collector of folk music from the 20th century) which was given to him by friend, Dmitri Ehrlich, a multi-platinum-selling songwriter, music journalist and author.

Choosing only the lines that in his words, “convey female sex”, Moby sets this sample against a repeating piano line, a hip-hop drum loop, vinyl cuts and a slide guitar. This charging blend of Americana, hip-hop and euphoric techno was a huge signal of intent from the then thirty three-year old musician and serves as a perfect preamble towards what lies in store for the rest of the album.

Moby’s early work is informed by the type of four to the floor techno, hip-house and breakbeat that seemingly linked arms with the onset of rave culture in New York and across the world in the '90s. And he doesn’t neglect that sense of optimism that it’s all going to be alright that was so beautifully captured by the movement.

On Porcelain, you know, that one immortalised by Danny Boyle's film The Beach, he explores the paranoia and jealousy beset by the realisation of the collapse of a relationship and the borderline personality disorder that he feels condemned it to failure. Yet, ironically as it were for a song named after years of getting sick into a toilet bowl, with its transcendent piano rhythms, cello and reversed string samples, never has a song about a breakup managed to convey such hope.

Moby had to be persuaded to include this on the album. And thank God he did. Porcelain encapsulates what it means to be heartbroken and disillusioned yet hopeful about the future. Furthermore this juxtapositioned number has soundtracked many an after-session. And will continue to do so for as long as it's fashionable to sniff coke off your parents washing machine.

Struggles with relationships are re-explored on the beautiful The Sky is Broken, a particular favourite of Moby’s. Commenting on the song in his autobiography, he tells us;

“I could write romantic songs but I couldn’t battle my panic attacks long enough to have relationships. The Sky is Broken was about a relationship I’d never had, with vulnerability and closeness and trust. My relationships were desperate and fuelled by panic. Before we’d broken up Sarah [Moby’s long-term girlfriend] had told me that I was like a scared, beaten dog who lived under a porch. And I agreed. I wanted to finally move out from under the porch and live in the daylight, but I couldn’t.”

Moby expands upon this longing and dejection. “Under the porch was lonely and dark. But it was familiar, and nothing could really hurt me there. If I came out from under the porch and ran around in the light I would be seen for who I really was: the inadequate eight-year-old boy with food stamps in his pocket. If I enjoyed life or opened up to anyone I would be ridiculed and hurt. Then I’d slink back under the porch, remonstrating with myself for ever leaving in the first place. Better to stay under the porch and be safe than leave and be hurt.

I was single and lonely and wanted to end this cycle of giving in to panic and running away from love. At some point soon I needed to find a woman who would love me for who I was and let me know that I was okay. I didn’t want to spend my life having drunken one-night stands. I wanted to sleep next to someone and feel safe. “Speak to me in the middle of the night,” my voice said on the cassette as I drove through the darkness. I would trade all the parties and vodka and threesomes and foursomes and sevensomes for one moment of safety and comfort, speaking quietly to someone I loved in the middle of the night.”

Of all the tracks on ‘Play’, Moby speaks most favourably of the more meditative sparse and atmospheric songs, a reflection perhaps of his direction towards more down-tempo music in recent times (‘Long ambients1:Calm. Sleep.’, Hotel Ambient’).

Other songs on the album to magnificently channel this sound include My Weakness and Guitar Flute and String. Why Does my Heart Feel So Bad? finds Moby at his lowest ebb, recently returned from a failed retreat to The Bahamas, shacked up in his apartment and on the verge of giving up. But with its sombre yet purposeful piano rythyms and beatific refrain, it embodies just what it means to be devoid of hope when suddenly, bam, some divine deity intervenes and rescues you, setting him on a path towards making 'Play'.

Among a trove of unreleased music that leaked in 2000 was These Open Doors, which would be later, reworked into a more melancholy chorus of “He’ll Open Doors”. And perhaps that is ‘Play’s’ most skilful asset, Moby’s ability to manipulate upbeat blues samples into vulnerable yet joyous electronica. But that would be oversimplifying it of course.

Elsewhere there’s the Fatboy Slimesque Bodyrock with its vintage hip-hop sample and orchestral chorus and the 134bpm techno juggernaut Machete, while other highlights on the album include the pop-friendly South Side, Natural Blues and Run On.

'Play' went on to become ubiquitous at the beginning of the millennium with several songs starring in films, adverts and a whole host of different media forms. And he hasn’t half made good of the wealth and fame that this has brought him, setting up Mobygratis, “a resource for independent and non-profit filmmakers, film students, and anyone in need of free music for their independent, non-profit film, video, or short” as well as several other charitable causes towards veganism and humanitarianism. Musically at least however, 'Play' is likely to be Moby’s enduring legacy.