''Dark Matter'' is the debut solo

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by British jazz musician

Moses Boyd Moses Boyd (born 30 April 1991) is a British jazz drummer, composer, record producer, bandleader and radio host. His debut solo studio album ''Dark Matter'' (2020) was nominated for the 2020 Mercury Prize. In 2014, Boyd and saxophonist Binke ...

. Boyd released it independently on 14 February 2020 under his own label, Exodus Records. The album was his third-ever solo project, following ''Absolute Zero'' (2017) and ''Displaced Diaspora'' (2018). ''Dark Matter'' was met with widespread critical acclaim upon release and was later nominated for the

Mercury Prize The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album released in the United Kingdom by a British or Irish act. It was created by Jon Webster and Robert Chandler in association with the B ...

Background and recording

Boyd explained to

Apple Music Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Apple M ...

that the record "isn’t meant to be a negative record; it's meant to unify, to make people think.” On the inspiration and motive behind the record's title, he told ''

The Fader ''The Fader'' (stylized as ''FADER'') is a magazine based in New York City that was launched in 1999 by Rob Stone and Jon Cohen. The magazine covers music, style and culture. It was the first print publication to be released on iTunes. It is o ...

'':

Composition

Musically, Dark Matter is a

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

record with elements of

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoir ...

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and jazz improvisation, improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, ...

grime Grime may refer to: * Dirt, in the form of black, ingrained dust * Grime (music genre), a genre of music * ''Grime'' (album), a 2001 album by Iniquity * ''Grime'' (video game), a 2021 Metroidvania video game * "Grime", a 2022 song by Dallas Woo ...

, and

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...

. Piotr Orlov of '' Afropunk'' additionally highlighted the record's influences of

afro-pop African popular music (also styled Afropop, Afro-pop or Afro pop), like Music of Africa, African traditional music, is vast and varied. Most contemporary genres of African popular music build on cross-pollination with western popular music. M ...

and

afrobeats Afrobeats (not to be confused with Afrobeat or Afroswing), or Afro-pop or Afro-fusion (or Afropop or Afrofusion), is an umbrella term to describe popular music from West Africa and the diaspora that initially developed in Nigeria, Ghana, and ...

. Elizabeth Aubrey of ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' described the record as a "melting-pot of genres and styles where complex jazz rhythms sit alongside he aforementioned genres, stressing that "whilst its head leans towards the mathematical with its polymath rhythms and intricate structures, its heart is firmly on the dancefloor." Bryan Hahn of ''

'' confirmed that on the album, Boyd "ignored expectations and rules, blending genres, freshly recorded sounds, and emotions."

Release and promotion

Despite releasing the album's lead single "Stranger Than Fiction" on 23 October 2019, Boyd only announced the album with the release of the second single, "Only You" on 27 November 2019. The album's third and final single, "Shades of You" was released on 9 January 2020.

Critical reception

''Dark Matter'' received positive acclaim from

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on w ...

. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 83, based on 11 reviews. Album of the Year collected 12 reviews and calculated an average of 79 out of 100. Aggregator

AnyDecentMusic? AnyDecentMusic? is a website that collates album reviews from magazines, websites, and newspapers. Primarily focused on popular music – covering rock, pop, electronic, dance, folk, country, roots, hip-hop, R&B, and rap – albums are adjudg ...

gave it 7.8 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus. Elizabeth Aubrey of ''

'' described ''Dark Matter'' as "an ambitious work full of scope, where Boyd continues to innovate and impress." Andy Cowan of ''

Mojo Mojo may refer to: *Mojo (African-American culture), a magical charm bag used in voodoo Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * MOJO HD, an American television network * ''Mojo'' (play), by Jez Butterworth, made into a 1997 film * '' ...

'' described the album as a "vivid, diverse debut", and described Boyd as "ridiculously gifted". John Lewis of ''

Uncut Uncut may refer to: * ''Uncut'' (film), a 1997 Canadian docudrama film by John Greyson about censorship * ''Uncut'' (magazine), a monthly British magazine with a focus on music, which began publishing in May 1997 * '' BET: Uncut'', a Black Enter ...

'' wrote, "This is not

pastiche A pastiche is a work of visual art, literature, theatre, music, or architecture that imitates the style or character of the work of one or more other artists. Unlike parody, pastiche pays homage to the work it imitates, rather than mocking it ...

or revival — this is jazz created in a distinctly London accent; the sounds you hear in cars and minicabs, the fractured beats you hear pouring out of teenagers’ phones — refracted through the prism of jazz." Dhruva Balram of ''

DJ Mag ''DJ Magazine'' (also known as ''DJ Mag'') is a British monthly magazine dedicated to electronic dance music and DJs. Founded in 1991, the magazine is adapted for distribution in the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, France, Italy, Lat ...

'' wrote that Dark Matter possesses a "jazz-kissed effect", while noting that Boyd blends in elements of

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

, dub,

dancehall Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially, dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s.Barrow, Steve & Dalton, Peter (2004) "The Rou ...

drum and bass Drum and bass (also written as drum & bass or drum'n'bass and commonly abbreviated as D&B, DnB, or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by fast breakbeats (typically 165–185 beats per minute) with heavy bass and sub-ba ...

techno Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often ch ...

house A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...

and

garage A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicle ...

"remarkably well". He concluded, "Deftly, it sounds like an ode to the various genres that the UK can claim and champion." ''

Crack Magazine ''Crack'' is a monthly independent music and culture magazine distributed across Europe. Founded in Bristol in the UK in 2009, the magazine has featured Björk, MF Doom, Lil Yachty, FKA twigs, Gorillaz and Queens of the Stone Age on the cover. T ...

'' wrote "Producer albums can often be noodly, navel-gazing affairs… this isn’t one of those.''"'' Liam Martin of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

concluded that ''Dark Matter'' "cements oydas one of the most exciting jazz musicians of his generation."

Accolades

Rankings

Awards

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from

Discogs Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...

and the album's

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes. Origin Liner notes are desce ...

Instrumentation and production

– producer , drums , drum programming , songwriter * Nathaniel Cross – arrangement , trombone , songwriter * Joe Armon-Jones – keyboards , synthesizer , rhodes , songwriter * Michael Underwood – tenor saxophone , flute * Ife Ogunjobe – trumpet *

Theon Cross Theon Cross is a British tuba player and composer. Background Born and raised in London to a Jamaican father and Saint Lucian mother, he began taking tenor horn lessons at the age of 8, then switched to tuba when he was in his mid-teens. He stu ...

– tuba * Artie Zaitz – guitar * Koyejo Oloko –

executive producer Executive producer (EP) is one of the top positions in the making of a commercial entertainment product. Depending on the medium, the executive producer may be concerned with management accounting or associated with legal issues (like copyrights o ...

Nubya Garcia Nubya Nyasha Garcia (born 1991) is an English jazz musician, saxophonist, composer and bandleader. Early life and education Garcia was born in 1991 in Camden Town, London, the youngest of four siblings, to a Guyanese mother, a former civil se ...

–

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while th ...

* Phillip Harper – percussion *

Binker Golding Binker Golding is a British jazz musician, who has released solo albums on Gearbox Records and is one half of the MOBO Awards, MOBO award-winning jazz duo Binker and Moses. Golding was born 1985 and comes from Enfield, London and went to Middlese ...

– tenor saxophone * Poppy Ajudha – vocals, songwriter * Arnaud Gichaud –

alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B tenor ...

* Chelsea Carmichael –

baritone saxophone The baritone saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of instruments, larger (and lower-pitched) than the tenor saxophone, but smaller (and higher-pitched) than the bass. It is the lowest-pitched saxophone in common use - the bass, contra ...

* Steven Umoh – vocals, songwriter * Nonku Phiri – vocals, songwriter * Klein – vocals * Gary Crosby – vocals

Technical and design

* Caspar Sutton-Jones – mastering engineer * David Wehinm –

mixing engineer A mixing engineer (or simply mix engineer) is responsible for combining ("mixing") different sonic elements of an auditory piece into a complete rendition (also known as "final mix" or "mixdown"), whether in music, film, or any other content of a ...

audio engineer An audio engineer (also known as a sound engineer or recording engineer) helps to produce a recording or a live performance, balancing and adjusting sound sources using equalization, dynamics processing and audio effects, mixing, reproduction, ...

* Ahmad Dayes – recording enginee
* David Dargahi – recording engineer
* David Rodger – recording endineer * Gilles Barrett – recording engineer * Jay Thomas Heigl – recording engineer * Mia Bradley – recording engineer * Stella Murphy – designer *

Metropolis Studios Metropolis Studios is a music production and entertainment industry company established in 1989 by Gary Langan, Carey Taylor and Karin Clayton.Donald Brackett It is located in the Powerhouse, a Grade II listed building, at 70 Chiswick High Roa ...

– mastering location

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2020 debut albums Jazz albums by English artists Jazz fusion albums by English artists