Mo' Moby: Moby on feelin' gay, slapping the religious right, and his new CD, Hotel.

Moby is a tough guy to label. Culturally, says the heterosexual born-again Christian, "I'm more of a gay Jew than I am a straight WASP from Connecticut. My formative years were spent peppering my speech with Yiddish and hanging out in gay nightclubs."

But the electronic music pioneer thrives on contradictions. His Grammy-nominated 1999 breakthrough, Play, transformed archival folk recordings into dance floor-friendly pop songs.

His latest release, Hotel, could easily be mistaken for the product of an artist laboring under multiple personality disorder, ranging from what Moby calls "decadent, degenerate dance songs" ("Very," "I Like It") to tender romantic ballads ("Love Should," "Forever") and even an introspective, acoustic cover of New Order's new wave classic "Temptation."

The record also comes packaged with a bonus CD of ambient instrumentals. "The world is improved by having more quiet, bucolic music in it," opines the New York resident. "If you've had a rough day, putting on really gentle classical music or a Brian Eno record when you get home is like aural Xanax."

Moby may champion soothing sounds, but his outspoken politics continue to rankle many pundits. No wonder he was delighted when a Claymation Moby doppelganger was featured prominently on a Saturday Night Live "TV Funhouse" segment last year: In a Christmas-special sketch, Santa threatened to cut off red-state children entirely because "a lump of coal is too good for hicks who hate nice queers like Moby."

If anything, the 39-year-old musician thought the SNL satire pulled its punches (at the end, Saint Nick recants and gives kids in Kentucky lefty-leaning gifts like Margaret Cho CDs). "I understand the necessity of having a PC ending, but it was much funnier when Santa was just being overtly belligerent and completely dismissive of the red states.

"The Left is missing a huge opportunity to actually hold the religious right accountable," he laments. "I saw an interview with Jerry Falwell recently, and he said the last election was decided by people who had good Christian values, which he went on to list as being pro-family and having a strong national defense. Now, I've read the New Testament a few times, and not only did Christ not mention a strong national defense, but he didn't mention abortion or homosexuality either.

"In fact," notes Moby, "the only wrath or ire that Christ ever seems to have shown tends to be toward religious leaders."

Reighley is the author of Looking for the Perfect Beat (MTV/Pocket Books).