NEW ALBUM TIMESHEET RELEASED APRIL 2010

Benedict's fifth album, entitled Timesheet, was released in April 2010.

Benedict's five-piece band plays throughout the album, and a number of long-term collaborators contribute to individual tracks.

Timesheet is availalble on iTunes now

Personnel as follows:

Rosemary Halsmith: glockenspiel and keyboard
Harry Kneen: bass
Daniel Marano: field recordings
Sam Scherr: electric guitar
Cameron Sim: pedal steel guitar
Lily Sumich: drums
Lorraine Sumich: Hammond and keyboards
Benedict Moleta: acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards and singing

The album was recorded by Alan Smith, and mastered by Scott Simms.

An industrious collaborator and low-key solo artist for the past decade, lanky Perth singer-songwriter Benedict Moleta isn’t well known in the rest of Australia. But if that’s ever going to change, it’ll be thanks to his hour-long fifth album. On it, Moleta paints scene after detailed scene, piling on heady descriptions in a voice that’s hushed, airy and pristinely delivered. Leading a five-piece setup with cameos from additional guests, he erases the line between story and song, recalling most often the intricate narratives of the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle. There’s a nearly constant stream of words and yet each of these 13 songs proves understated and quietly catchy.

As a lyricist, Moleta is preoccupied by remembrance as well as the various catalysts for it. He specifically cites 1999, 2002, the 1960s, and “1987 or ’88”, brimming with mentions of silver Celicas, white gum trees in the winter sun, and other evocative images. His words are all the more affecting for being fleshed out meagrely yet tastefully by keyboards, glockenspiel, pedal steel, bass, and drums. Though there’s some of the Middle East’s stirring quietude in his songs, there are few of that band’s inevitable swells. The album’s seven-minute opener ‘Milk White’ features only occasional washes of pedal steel against Moleta’s guitar and voice. The second song, ‘Believer’, commences with such a long guitar passage that you expect it to be an instrumental. The eventual words, though, are indelible, especially this line: “Believer, how have you kept your mind so clear/Despite blitzing it every Saturday night for so many consecutive years?”

On paper, 13 songs is a few too many for a downbeat singer-songwriter album, but Timesheet is uniformly strong. Highlights abound, from the heartbreakingly minimal ‘Greyhound’ to the should-be single ‘Metal Towers’ to the affable glance at the childhood/adulthood divide that is ‘Crazy Itch’. Another, ‘Lowered Kingswood’, hits home with an unlikely image of guitar-armed children learning the “magic of power chords”. The lyrics are great throughout, as is the music. Beyond the Mountain Goats, I’m reminded at times of the Lucksmiths and Mojave 3. But that’s more a matter of kindred spirits than these songs sounding at all derivative.

Moleta won’t win any awards for best album cover: Timesheet’s stark front simply credits the album’s players in all caps. The back cover is also blank white, with just a barcode at the bottom. One assumes then that he wants the album to speak for itself. Given his gracious, vivid way with lyrics, he’s earned that right.

by Doug Wallen

Click to download Minaret - the first single from the forthcoming album.

Photographs by Darren Clayton.