the shape of acid jazz to come: MOSES BOYD's Dark Matter

I've been meaning to start a thread on this, one of my top 2020 albums so far, but wasn't sure how much traction it would get (also I'm sure I'll regret this thread title in about ten mins). But then dow posted this on rolling jazz:

if the title of Moses Boyd's Dark Matter suggests a science fiction soundtrack, you're on the right trek: "Nommos Descent," feat. Nonku Phiri and Nubya Garcia, is like Quincy Jones of Young London Presents the New Nocturnal PostFreeBop Pop--that's the one that The Guardian calls "over produced," but I don't think so, it fits perfectly after the gruff, vivid social observations over circular jagged beats and recurring sax fiber of "Dancing in the Dark" feat. Obongjayar, the dubbier drive of "Only You," (incl. roil of looped[?] drums), and "Far Gone"'s flexing core times the rippling ricochet piano of Joe Armon-Jones. Elsewhere we get well-chosen bits of conversation, overblown flute, tough guitar---so far I'm only underwhelmed by the opener, which incl. tinny muted trumpet, not good to start w anticlimax.
I guess early works of Soul II Soul and Massive Attack might also be suggested, but this seems more consistently expansive and energized, in a cool, wider-ranging-record-collection way.
https://mosesboyd.bandcamp.com/album/dark-matter-2

― dow, Tuesday, May 5, 2020 7:34 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

One of my favorites this year for sure

― Mordy, Tuesday, May 5, 2020 7:56 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

dow otm, though I don't quite agree about the first track, I've always liked muted trumpet and the whole thing has an overture quality that works as an opener imo

Love this album, love the first record as well.

sick album.

I'm overdue to check out the previous one (loved "Rye Lane Shuffle/Drum Dance").

Since I'm not in the UK, I wonder how possible is it that "Shades of You" could get radio play?

It got 6music radio play but that doesn't really count.

Yeah, this is great. Also Joe Armon-Jones' stuff under his own name; he's done a couple of great albums.

Agree with the refs to Soul II Soul & Massive Attack - I keep expecting this stuff to cross over. Wanna hear it at my neighbours' barbecues.

I have been doing my part by making sure my neighbours hear “shades of you” every day (although I don’t actually play it very loud because I am a good boy)

love "shades of you" whole album is enormous but that track is a knockout for sure

i love the way she sings "colors" on the opening line

This is nice, very Tony Allen, I wonder how much of that came out of this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNru-AhcBwo

lol just got to the 'In the Air Tonight' fills on Dancing in the Dark

Nothing against muted trumpet as such, but it sounded tinny in such robust setting, although Boyd was prob going for contrast: the sound of one in the city etc.--- I like it more now that I'm more familiar with the track and the album.

This was my gateway https://weouthere.bandcamp.com/album/we-out-here

Then this! https://mosesboyd.bandcamp.com/album/displaced-diaspora

Out later this year,(Update: Sept 25, last I heard)'Blue Note Re:imagined' is a contemporary take on the label's timeless output, a newly recorded collection of songs by a broad cross-section of fresh voices.

It's a broad spread, too, moving from Ezra Collective and Shabaka Hutchings through to Yazmin Lacey, Alfa Mist, and Nubya Garcia.

Jorja Smith opted to tackle St Germain's 'Rose Rouge', which sampled Marlena Shaw’s vastly influential 'Cookin With Blue Note At Montreux' album. Play it via this post:
https://www.clashmusic.com/news/jorja-smith-tackles-blue-note-classic-rose-rouge Maybe too
2000 loungey at first, but builds.

Out now, it's the perfect lead in to the project, which follows Blue Note's 80th anniversary celebrations last year.

Sorry, that last line was from the magazine! The track is out now, album later.

A y2k time trip, but it's growing on me!

try to do it directly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwSfURSe18Q

Seems like it sounds better now that I've switched to Firefox.

Don't know if they've added anything beyond her vocals, haven't done comparative listening yet.

Listened all the way through again, nice!

love this record sooo much

i love the way she sings "colors" on the opening line

― Mordy, Wednesday, May 6, 2020 11:23 AM (one month ago)

This is otm. In fact all her inflections on the verses are really compelling. Love this bit:

There is beauty in your darkness
So much colour in your soul
Seeping as I put it
I enter your black hole

BTB and Shades of You are both awesome, but the whole thing is great.

Excerpts of these tracks are brief but promising and thread-relevant---on the site, looks like you can get digital, if only track by track at this point (maybe wait & see what options turn up on Amazon etc. when it's released)
https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/img/bVZneHhLeng4QWkvMXMrTGVuUFJYQT09/sjr-lp455-kaleidoscope-triple-sleevenew.jpg

Soul Jazz Records’ new album ‘Kaleidoscope – New Spirits Known and Unknown’ brings together many of the ground-breaking artists involved in the new jazz scene that has developed in the UK over the last few years. Featured artists include Matthew Halsall, Yazmin Lacey, Ill Considered, Tenderlonious, Theon Cross, Emma-Jean Thackray and many, many more in this ground-breaking release.

As well as sharing a pioneering spirit in these new artists’ approach to frontier-crossing musical boundaries, a further theme of this album is that many also share a determination to independent practices - and most of these artists’ recordings featured here are either self-published or released on independent labels. While the attention of this new wave of jazz artists has up until now has been London-based, this album shows how this movement is spread across the whole of Britain (and indeed beyond).

‘Kaleidoscope – New Spirits Known and Unknown’ shows that while there is commonality in these artists approach to music, there is a wide variety of styles – from deep spiritual jazz, electronic experimentalisation, punk-edged funk, uplifting modal righteousness, deep soulful vocals and much more.

Soul Jazz Records’ new release comes as a superb one-off pressing special deluxe triple album edition which comes with a bonus limited-edition one-off pressing 7" single, a standard triple album, and a deluxe double CD pack. This album also comes with extensive sleevenotes, artist interviews and exclusive photography.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Soul Jazz records are also releasing an exclusive one-off pressing double-headed 12” single featuring Theon Cross and Pokus released on the same day as the ‘Kaleidoscope’ album release. These two tracks do not feature on the vinyl edition of the album - this 12" single will will also be deleted on day of release.

Release Date
17 July 2020
In case that image of the cover goes away, here are the tracks:
Tracklisting
1 Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra – When The World Was One
2 Yazmin Lacey – 90 Degrees
3 Hector Plimmer – Communication Control
4 Ill Considered – Long Way Home (Live At The Crypt)
5 The Expansions – Mosaic
6 Chip Wickham – Red Planet
7 Levitation Orchestra – Odyssey
8 Emma-Jean Thackray – Walrus
9 Tenderlonious and The 22archestra – The Shakedown
10 Pokus – Pokus One
11 Theon Cross – Candace Of Meroe
12 Joe Armon-Jones & Maxwell Owin – Tanner's Tango
13 Collocutor – Gozo
14 Makaya McCraven – Untitled
15 Nat Birchall – Ancient World
16 Ruby Rushton – Moonlight Woman
17 Ebi Soda – Dimmsdale
18 The Cromagnon Band – Thunder Perfect
19 SEED Ensemble – Mirrors
20 Ishmael Ensemble – Kito's Theme
21 Vels Trio – Yellow Ochre (Part 1)
More info, audio snips: https://soundsoftheuniverse.com/sjr/product/kaleidoscope_2

I like that Makaya McCraven is an honorary member of this scene now

Yeah! I'll prob get the 2-CD

I don't know much about Ill Considered, but I love their s/t album from a few years ago

trying to get into this via "shades of you" but the production on that track sounds like dogshit to me :/

maybe it's a s1sk problem lol

Got my 2-CD Kaleidoscope, just played it for the first time, and right away hearing several, if not quite a few, that would work on a mixtape w Dark Matter. Maybe not he ones by McCraven and Ill Considered, but they're reall good in other ways---lots of cohesive variety here, as well there might be, going by all the connections made and noted in booklet. Several of these artist started out pretty isolated, but maybe that was an advantage in some ways, developing their own sound (w help of That One Guy, even, a teacher and/or mentor, early on), before they get to the scenes, and this big tent community.

Dark Matter has been my aoty since I first heard it, and even lots of other albums I like have come out since, it still is. (The Sault album is the only one that’s come close, and it could practically be a sibling, even though its influences are more pop and less jazz.)

even though

Oscar Jerome's album has just come out, he's worked with Moses Boyd, Joe Armon-Jones, Kokoroko etc.; it's jazzy, funky, latiny singer-songwritery stuff, very good, although not as good as he is live.

Thanks for reminder on Sault; I don't think I've heard of Oscar, will check that too.
Now going through some other releases by Kaleidoscope contributors (Tenderlonious and Nubya Garcia have albs out this Fri. 21rst)
For instance: take a bracing break with Yazmin Lacey's current EP, Morning Matters. Pretty thread-relevannt: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/4bKvGPxUyTronyfLbfGoD7t8TBUZZMGu04mN9PL1Xduzr5HVhiprhjfHAH5SQeOHQT5OPbXgAXvTnsYq=w544-h544-l90-rj if that doesn't show, it's on YouTube Music, lots of these K-scopers are on bandcamp too---bandcamp may be better for artists, but YTM has better audio on my little old set-up.

Oops, that's the art---let me try it again, and then audio:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/4bKvGPxUyTronyfLbfGoD7t8TBUZZMGu04mN9PL1Xduzr5HVhiprhjfHAH5SQeOHQT5OPbXgAXvTnsYq=w544-h544-l90-rj
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kcdqndRu_qyk5y_nDlRrPW5gljLgM1wDA

Not the best art, but pertains to the music.

Also thread-relevant: K-scope contributor Emma-Jean Thackray's "Movementt" (sic) from her 2020 Rain Dance EP, where she samples her band's live performances and adds instruments, sometimes vocals---on this particular track, she plays all the instruments, and I always like her voice (nice video for this one too)--would work in a mix w Dark Matter tracks I think:
https://ejthackray.bandcamp.com/track/movementt

https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a2920904191_10.jpg

Gilles Peterson Presents MV4
Taken from a day of live sessions in London’s legendary Maida Vale Studios - studio MV4 to be exact, it was originally intended just for Peterson’s BBC radio show broadcast on 20th October 2018. Struck by what a special moment the sessions captured, Peterson has decided to mark the results with a release proper on his Brownswood imprint.

A limited special double vinyl release(download also, from bandcamp & elsewhere) it features a diverse, all-star cast of some of the acts celebrated by Peterson in recent years, in a series of freewheeling and off-the-cuff recordings, several of the tracks backed by the group of Brownswood signee, Joe Armon-Jones. Featuring Dylan Jones, James Mollison, Mutale Chashi, and Marijus Aleksa as well as guest turns from Fatima, Asheber, Nubya Garcia, Hak Baker, and Oscar Jerome, plus a double track special from Bristol based collective, Ishmael Ensemble.
Think all of this is thread-relevent, esp, tracks w guest vcx: right off, the strong yet never overselling lungs of Asheber on "New Day," likewise plus driving rhythm-guitar-as soloing-instrument of xpost Oscar Jerome on "Do You Really", hope and urgency of Fatima on "Only."
Then Hax Baker's phrasing combines dancehall, maybe hip-hop, improvised-seeming exchanges with the rhythm section in a way I've never heard, though I'm not from around here. That's "Thirsty Thursday," more romantic than you might think re title.
Whole thing is morning coffee for basking & grooving.
Will spare you the cover "art," but here's where I listened
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjo10l5gjTM&list=RDAMVMhTQ8IgAXwp0

vox, not vcx, Hak not Hax Baker, although not bad for typos.

What other Peterson collections should I get? I know he's been around a long time, I see appealing titles, but no idea where to go next.

Holy Modal, just listened to Nubya Garcia's new Source: so far her tenor's seeming heavy and unresponsive to peppery drums etc. on first two tracks, but the rest blows me away, and is mostly thread/mix-relevant:
3.

Source (featuring Ms MAURICE, Cassie Kinoshi, Richie Seivwright) 12:08



4.

Together Is A Beautiful Place To Be 07:36



5.

Stand With Each Other (featuring Ms MAURICE, Cassie Kinoshi, Richie Seivwright) 03:38



6.

Inner Game 07:44



7.

La cumbia me está llamando (featuring La Perla) 04:15



8.

Before Us: In Demerara & Caura (featuring Ms MAURICE) 08:00



9.

Boundless Beings (featuring Akenya) 02:46


about
Award-winning saxophonist and composer Nubya Garcia announces her debut album SOURCE, to be released August 21, 2020 on Concord Jazz. Produced by Garcia herself in collaboration with celebrated producer Kwes (Bobby Womack, Solange, Nerija), the album is announced after the release of lead single “Pace” and a rousing live performance on the BBC’s 2020 Glastonbury Experience.
SOURCE explores a multidimensional jazz sound layered with soul, afro-diasporic sounds and hints of dub-step along the way. Tracks 4 and 6 are the relatively mainstream--vibrantm and in the case of "Inner Game," fast-ballads, the rest is more cosmopolitan yall, all ranging from affecting to exhilarating. (Well-rounded, and even a bit more variety in the closer, which is Arkestra-worthy Earthlight serenade.)
I listened here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbzDZxmJypQ&list=PLddSkUxmPEC-f9Ly6O1i_YdMzXHE_9EPR&index=1

What the hell, anyway check YouTube for Nubya Garcia Source full album (opener "Pace" is playing again, and now I get it, but think those I pasted fit thread better)

Joe Armon-Jones' keys delight all over this.

Ebi Soda, Ugh: Body, brio, beats, trombones, other horns, dubwise, occasional voices: this album (titled Ugh) will get you or at least me high for a night. At a time, that is (reasonable0. Now in stereo.
Stupid cover, but I sure hope this link works: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms8bs0CLz5Q&list=OLAK5uy_mlP4WfKAU_GVwYzqiRQQ0MgIJyO_8XxrI

Is there any catch-all thread for the whole current London jazz scene including Boyd, Garcia, Shabaka Hutchings, Yazz Ahmed, Camilla George, SEED Ensemble, Maisha, Nerija, etc? There's so much interconnections between these people and their sound that a separate thread might be nice?

London jazz wizard Shabaka Hutchings: Sons of Kemet / The Comet Is Coming / Shabaka & the Ancestors

Well yeah, but that one is technically about Hutchings just like this one is about Boyd... I meant a thread for the entire scene.

I can start one if it doesn't exist yet, I feel like they deserve a single unifying thread?

There's a great set by KOKOROKO at the Proms on the BBC i-player at the moment

A catch-all thread for the current jazz scene in London, including Shabaka Hutchings, Yazz Ahmed, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia, Camilla George, Theon Cross, Zara McFarlane, Daniel Casimir, SEED Ensemble,

This one is about Boyd... I meant a thread for the entire scene. This one's gotten to be about others as well, but good to have more threads covering the scene, scenes, yeah!

Can't manage the post now, but on youtube check Katy B vocals for Boyd's remix of "2 Far Gone"--hope he'll remix--the whole album maybe? Why not. Check her thread too.

Said remix:

https://mosesboyd.bandcamp.com/track/2-far-gone-vocal-mix-ft-katy-b

there was discussion of that in the katy b thread, it's fantastic

shout out to nikola for posting this on the Shabaka thread, it's superb:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPZxrsS2Hp0

Binker & Moses "Accelerometer Overdose"

Out now:

Art Themen, Greg Foat & Baldo Verdu & Moses Boyd.
Four Sides to Every Story
The Vinyl Factory / Soho Radio / 180

Greg Foat performs live at Vinyl Sessions – a series from The Vinyl Factory and Soho Radio, where artists record direct-to-dubplate, captured in a single take. ‘Four Sides to Every Story’ features four spontaneous, improvised compositions from Art Themen, Greg Foat, Baldo Verdu and Moses Boyd.

* Tenor & soprano saxophone: Art Themen
* Percussion: Baldo Verdu
* Drums: Moses Boyd
* Electric piano & synthesizers: Greg Foat

* Edition of 500 units
* Release Date: 10/03/22

Greg Foat is one of the UK’s leading jazz pianists, composers, and music producers. He has worked with a diverse selection of musicians including Bob Lind, Moses Boyd, Curtis Lundy, Rita Ora, Wendy James, Questlove and The Kooks. In recent years, he’s recorded for Jazzman Records, Athens Of The North, and Strut.

Using Soho Radio’s lathe to capture the performance, ‘Four Sides To Every Story’ features Foat on keys and vocals alongside Moses Boyd on drums, Baldo Verdu on percussion, and Art Themen on saxophone.

https://thevinylfactory.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Greg-Foat_Sq-768x769.png

cover art for true cratedigger appeal

https://thevinylfactory.com/product/four-sides-to-every-story/?utm_source=The+Vinyl+Factory+%28New+Main+List%29&utm_campaign=82fef4f069-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_28_02_45_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4edc26fa7f-82fef4f069-150952293&mc_cid=82fef4f069&mc_eid=9d9d04ee64

A bit of that (I think):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gOqz_7kz7U

I couldn’t listen closely but the new Binker & Moses album sounded great