Mark Moldre - The Waiting Room (Album)
Propelled by the aesthetics of old-fashioned relics and melancholic dreams, Mark Moldre is creating the kind of music we rarely hear come out of Australia. In Moldre’s own words, his songs sound like “old typewriters and gramophones...fawn corduroy...the turning pages of old books.”
Woven into a debut solo album whose title will have followers of John Fowles’ The Magus prick their ears up, these songs are intricate, visual poems that lend themselves to themes of childhood memories, inspirations, love, and love lost. The Waiting Room makes you want to take a seat, strap on your headphones and eschew having your name called for quite some time.
Laden with gorgeous harmonies, vocal hooks and artful arrangements, The Waiting Room liner notes read like the inventory of a music store – twelve string guitars, wurlitzers, mellotrons, optigans, cellos, miscellaneous drums, theremins, harmonicas. And channeled through a proper pair of headphones, every instrument resonates and every vocal carries, heightening the transformative layers of the album.
While the single ‘In This Life’ is conceivably an upbeat pop song, its distinctive jangling guitar riff, Flaming Lips-esque vocal, and old-school backing vocals provided by Moldre’s ‘Sailor's Choir,’ ensure the song quickly eludes any typical, mundane categorisation.
Unfolding in a slow waltz time, ‘This Romantic Day’ crackles and whirs like old film music. Recalling the ethereal, fragile beauty of Sparklehorse’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ ‘This Romantic Day’ is without doubt the album’s breathtaking highlight.
‘Smoke,’ the final track before The Waiting Room closes its doors, fills with marching drums and muted organs before fading away like smoke. Encapsulating Moldre’s gift for poetry and the album’s overarching aesthetic, his lyrics are dusted with nostalgia – ‘and the crackle of old records fills the house like burning autumn leaves.’
The Waiting Room is Moldre’s journey to the past and back again, establishing a musical manifesto of all the things that have saved him along the way. While the innocence and security of childhood have long gone, The Waiting Room embraces the melancholia of passing time and turns it into something wonderful.
