FEATURE: Spotlight: Moses Boyd — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Moses Boyd

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THERE is quite a lot to cover off…

PHOTO CREDIT: Eddie Otchere for A Nation of Billions

when it comes to Moses Boyd. His latest album, Dark Matter, has been nominated for this year’s Mercury Prize, and we will see how he gets on when the winner is announced on 24th September. He might not be the favourite to win the prize, but I think Boyd has released one of the most enriching, satisfying and pure listens of 2020. Dark Matter is a phenomenal album, and one that has turned me onto one of this country’s brightest talents! Boyd was born and raised in the district of Catford in South London. He attended Sedgehill School, which was where he began learning drums. I will talk more about Boyd and the drums later but, as he is such an interesting and talented artist, I wanted to bring in a few interviews where he has been discussing his music and early life. I love Dark Matter, and I listen to the record and wonder how Moses Boyd started out and when music came into his life. I tend to approach music from an analytical viewpoint, and I am curious about the beginnings and those early experiences. In an interview with Loud and Quiet from earlier this year, we learn more about Moses Boyd’s upbringing, and how he took to the drums:

“Boyd has got onto this sushi/jazz analogy as a way of explaining a path that has taken him from being a fresh-faced teenager in Catford, south-east London, with no particular interest in playing music – “I was into other stuff, skateboarding, basketball, just normal kid stuff” – to becoming a 28-year-old rising star in one of the most hyped cities on the planet to play jazz, with an album and fistful of EPs and collaborations behind him and a new solo record, Dark Matter, due out this coming Valentine’s Day.

He originally caught the drumming bug aged 14, after first seeing a boy from a couple years above “destroying” a kit in his school music block, and then one of the school’s peripatetic music teachers, an old jazzer with an ear for promise, turning their allocated lesson of half an hour a week into extended masterclasses that allowed Boyd to flourish. There was then the Camden Roundhouse jazz workshops in the mid-noughties hosted by pianist Leon Mitchener that Boyd describes as opening his ears to jazz and other experimental music by the likes of Frank Zappa, followed by a trail of £40 cash-in-hand jam sessions across the capital as a sixth-former, acceptance onto the jazz performance degree at Trinity Laban in Greenwich (at the third time of asking), and finally, after graduating in 2016, integration into the currently thriving London circuit that is causing music fans who may once have been circumspect about British jazz to prick up their ear”.

Although Dark Matter is Moses Boyd’s debut studio album, he has worked on collaborative albums since 2014 – I especially love Displaced Diaspora (with Moses Boyd Exodus) from 2018. Boyd put out his E.P., Absolute Zero, in 2017, and he has worked on a couple of mixtapes. Dark Matter, for that reason, is less of an introduction: it is this first full solo outing, where we get a greater representation of Boyd’s vision and imagination.

On Dark Matter, I like the fact that percussion plays a big role. When we think of a Jazz album, one might feel that horns and brass takes a bigger role, but there is a pleasing blend of Dark Matter where percussion takes a lead and we get a beautiful blend of other instruments, making Dark Matter instantly accessible, but rich and complex at the same time. Boyd is also a producer on the album, and it is clear that he has put his passion and soul into the recording! Boyd is a passionate and positive person and, when he spoke to The Line of Best Fit this year, that aspect comes through. Boyd also discussed his music lessons at school and his bond with artists such as Miles Davis:

“When speaking about Grenfell, and the Windrush scandal too, Moses is clear that you can’t be from the UK and not be affected. You can’t be Black and in London and not be affected. Both tragedies, both avoidable, and with hindsight both had a big impact on Dark Matter.

“I’m quite a positive person in general,” he smiles. “But when I think back to writing and recording this, everything that was going on, it all had an effect, personally, and I think my music was just responding to that. Just as an artist, you soak stuff up around you and I think that’s what’s so different about everything else I’ve put out before. Everything else was a bit more structured, whereas Dark Matter was more ‘I’ve got February, let me just pull up a keyboard and a drum machine and see what happens.’"

Much has been made of the new wave of British Jazz in South London, something that’s been incredible to see. But in truth it’s been bubbling away for so long now, that the next generation are already biting at the heels of Moses and his contemporaries, each with their own spin. Chatting about Catford – and specifically his time at Sedge Hill school where he first began to learn drums – Moses is conscious that the extracurricular opportunities he had are perhaps even more rare now for these young musicians than they were in his own youth.

“I was lucky the music lessons were still a thing when I was in school – it’s actually stopped since. That inner city school experience man, it makes you, one way or another. What it did for me was it really cemented the idea of ‘you are this’. Not in a way where you can't change, but more ‘stand on your own two feet and don’t ever be ashamed to be who you are.’”

“I had great teachers. Contextually I’m 13 and listening to Miles Davis and Wiley – that’s weird right? But at no point did I ever feel intimidated to be like that, just because it was a means of survival. It’s not to say I didn’t fit in, but I knew I was different in that respect and people didn't necessarily understand what I was into, in terms of music and spending my time doing it, over lunchtimes at school”.

I am going to wrap things up soon but, before ending this, I want to bring in a further interview, in addition to a great review of Dark Matter. I would urge people to follow Moses Boyd, and check out his music. If you can buy Dark Matter then so much the better, as it is an album that is made to be heard in a physical form! Although Moses Boyd is not exactly new to the scene, I have included him in this feature as I think Dark Matter is his breakthrough, and it is his most accomplished and fully-realised work. I love his work prior to the debut studio album, and I know there are so many upcoming artists out there who will take a lead from Boyd. He is a tremendous musician, songwriter and producer, and I do hope that we get a lot more material in the future from this awesome talent. The last interview I want to bring in is from Afropunk. They went deep with Boyd, but they asked about Dark Matter being called a ‘debut’, and whether he feels that the album is his most representative record:

“People keep calling Dark Matter your debut album even though you did Displaced Diaspora and the Absolute Zero EP. Talk a little bit about how this is more of a proper debut and different from previous records. What is your sense why this is “the first thing”?

So, I would say this is the first album. Absolute Zero, Time and Space were all four-track EPs. That was just an idea, not a long body of work. Displaced Diaspora was a collection of tunes that I had written from something like 17 years old to 24, when I’d recorded “Rye Lane Shuffle.” It was music I had that I wanted to capture and what was going on around me, but I didn’t necessarily think it was a representation of where I was at the time. If you look at the album, Nubya Garcia is on it, Theon Cross is on it, Binker Golding, a lot of the people that are doing amazing things now played on that record — they were easily accessible back then, now they’re all busy and traveling the world.

We recorded that session in 2015, “Rye Lane Shuffle” and “Drum Dance” came out in 2016 and then the rest of that session didn’t come out till 2018. So it was an odd one. I didn’t see it as an album. But I also felt it needed to be out there so people could enjoy it. But there was no big tour, there wasn’t even press. So it’s tough because we’re in this world where, what is an album nowadays? It just has more than six tracks. And I don’t know either. But I can say it wasn’t in terms of a campaign, in terms of energy and in terms of being representative of where I was exactly as it came out, it wasn’t any of that. But I’m still really proud of it.

So in which way do you think that Dark Matter works to be representative, besides the fact that you conceived of it as a whole? Musically speaking, how does Dark Matter represent who you are right now as an artist? And where you are as an artist? represent? It’s not really a jazz album or an electronic album — it’s a groove album. How do you Dark Matter representing who you are, piecemeal or as a whole.

It’s definitely a lot more accurate representation of where I am now. I guess I’m a bit more nuanced now. I don’t necessarily see myself as just the drummer. I’m a producer, I’m a writer, I’m a composer. I’m into jazz, I’m into electronic music, I’m into modular synthesizers. I’m into moody music. Also, Dark Matter more so than anything else I’ve done, soundtracks what was going on around the time I was making it. It was a lot more reactive than my past projects. I started making it sort of towards the end of 2018, so contextually, what was going on in England, there was Brexit, there was the Windrush Scandal, there was Grenfell, there was just a lot going on, and that can’t be in your face 24-7 without having an effect”.

I think I have only really touched the surface when exploring the depths of Moses Boyd’s life and music, so I would recommend people do some more exploration and digging. I think the U.K. Jazz scene is in fine form at the moment, and with varied players like Moses Boyd, Emma-Jean Thackray, and Nubya Garcia laying down some incredible music, I think we will see further development and evolution as the years go on. Dark Matter is such a terrific record because it sounds both classic and modern. Boyd has a deep love of Jazz classics and legends, but he is someone who is looking forward and wants to put his own stamp on the genre. It is no surprise that Dark Matter has been greeted with such acclaim and fondness! This is what The Line of Best Fit said when they approached Dark Matter:

“At its darkest, Dark Matter descends into brooding electro more akin to tech house than hard bop. Electronic drum grooves meld with synth baselines and Theon Cross’ throbbing tuba. It seems Cross’ 808-like sub-harmonic tones have become a ubiquitous part of the London jazz scene. RIP bassists.

However, though the record is by and large a collection of dense, stoic grooves, there is one outlier. The single “Shades of You” featuring vocalist Poppy Ajudha sits strangely bright alongside the rest of the track listing. While the album as a whole evokes images of sweaty dance floors and caustic youth, this poppy, upbeat single jerks the listener out of the reverie. I feel like I’ve been suddenly transported into a third wave coffee shop, where I find myself ordering a $5 latte.

Jazz fusion records (and let’s face it, that’s what this is), have a tendency to lean on zeitgeist-y tropes and production techniques to distance themselves from their stiff-collared traditionalist brethren. What the gated drums and FM synths were to the 80s, the trap hi hats and side chain are to our epoch. Hip today, dated tomorrow. Current trends pop up again here on Dark Matter. This album is not a timeless classic, it is a du jour album that showcases a drummer and producer’s talent at capturing the sound of the times. It should be enjoyed as such: a testament to young musicians blending tradition and modernity in exciting new ways”.

I shall leave things there, but I would once again point people in the direction of the wonderful Moses Boyd. I do hope that his fanbase continues to rise, and I have been hearing cuts from Dark Matter played on various different radio stations. He is connected with so many people, and I have no doubt that we will hear so much more from him. At a time of great uncertainty and division, I think his music has been a remedy to balm the wounds; a source of strength and light, not to mention the fact that one can lose themselves in his magic! I shall end this now, but it has been great covering Moses Boyd and, to leave this feature, I want to throw…