Album Review: Benedict Moleta - Singleton

It is inevitable within any strong musical community, such as that which exists here in Perth, that musicians who spend years playing around the traps, filling out the line-ups of formative bands in the scene, will meet at gigs and such, take a liking to each others' work, and ultimately band together on other projects. It's this environment that has led to the creation of suburban songsmith Benedict Moleta's seventh album, Singleton.

A 12-track collection of guitar duos between Moleta and a selection of musical Perthians, Singleton presents us with the songwriter's trademark introspective tales of suburbia backed by meandering folk guitar. Adding voice and instrumentation to the record are Bill Darby of '90s band O! (currently operating as beatsmith 10 Bit Tonsil), Andrew Ewing of Devil Rides Out, Miranda Pollard of noughties band New Rules For Boats, and Kill Teen Angst frontman Scott Tomlinson. All of these musos have solo projects to some extent, and their expertise has contributed with subtlety and nuance here on Singleton.

Moleta's narrative songwriting style here, as with his previous work, carries with it a real sense of place; it feels uniquely Perth, as if he manages to capture the essence of grey asbestos fences, brown lawns and dry summers and weave it into his lyrical tapestries. Whether it's the dry summers part, or the bare acoustic nature of the songs, the record as a whole feels somewhat drawn out in places, but this is quickly remedied by the harmonies on choruses, particularly those of Pollard, whose voice adds a new dimension and vibrancy to tracks such as Silent D and Another Hound, bringing Moleta's carefully constructed melodies to the fore.