POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Moby Bright Spot in a Colorless ‘World’

For its first three-hours plus, “Rave New World”--a touring package of emerging “techno” acts that stopped at the Coach House here on Friday--was a desultory, colorless, headache-inducing waste of time. But Moby’s closing set proved it possible to infuse a soul into this new machine music.

Before Moby came to the rescue, the sparse audience of about 150 spent most of the rave being pounded by recorded tracks, most of them nothing more than a horrid, anti-melodic, anti-pop thud. There was little to choose between the recorded filler and the mercifully brief, 15-minute set of nightmare-soundtrack music by Detroit’s Cybersonik.

The Prodigy, in contrast, served up perky beats that kept the crowd hopping. But aerobics success wasn’t accompanied by much musical value from the English band. Its 37-minute set was dominated by the barking of Keity Palmer, a reggae-style toaster who mainly served as a cheerleader. When Palmer finally piped down during the closing “Fire,” one could at least appreciate keyboardist-composer Liam Howlett’s knack for turning out lightweight but well-designed electronic collages.

Mild-mannered Moby (real name: Richard Melville Hall) seemed more like a clerk out of a Charles Dickens novel than one of the seafaring Ahabs or Billy Budds created by his distant ancestor, Herman Melville. But he was a frenzied performer who easily carried his 40-minute, one-man show.

If Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails embodies techno music’s rage-filled, demonic side, Moby came off as its sorrowing, aspiring good angel.