Moses Boyd is a drummer in the same way Questlove from the Roots is a drummer, which is to say that the twice Mobo-winning 28-year-old Londoner is a producer-composer-collaborator-influencer not bound by the kit surrounding him. A progenitor of the current London jazz scene, Boyd’s official solo debut goes large on cross-pollination – and dancing.
Whereas Boyd’s previous Mobo-winning duo with the saxophonist Binker Golding and his Exodus ensemble remained more or less on-genre, Dark Matter exists very much in the wake of Boyd’s breakout track of 2016, Rye Lane Shuffle (which featured Four Tet and Floating Points on mixes). This is the London hybrid jazz of now – a party-facing electronic record that takes note of Afrobeats, two-step garage and Boyd’s travels in South Africa.
There are vocalists here, who actually struggle to add to the lyricism on offer. Pick of the bunch is Obongjayar, whose ode to the ongoing cataclysm befalling black youths, Dancing in the Dark, gives Dark Matter its moral high ground. Best of all is 2 Far Gone, where Ezra Collective’s Joe Armon-Jones arpeggiates magnificently on keys while Boyd shakes the rafters.
