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- Critic score
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Mar 13, 2020Dark Matter cements him as one of the most exciting jazz musicians of his generation.
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Feb 12, 2020At just under and hour the album isn’t notably long nor short, but there are no parts that drag or feel out of place. This isn’t a hip-hop album, a jazz album, an electronica album...but something that will speak to fans of those genres who’ll take this as their album.
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Feb 13, 2020As the artist has noted himself, Boyd has finally stepped out of his label as a jazz musician to embrace himself as a producer who also plays jazz.
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MojoFeb 12, 2020Masterful vocal mash-ups with London songstress Poppy Ajudha, South African electronic upsetter Nonku Phiri and a wonderfully gravelly Obongjayar help propel this testament to Boyd's illimitable outlook far into the stratosphere. [Mar 2020, p.91]
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Dec 7, 2020It’s a bold, contemporary sounding record that is also aware of its broader lineage, something encapsulated by opening track Stranger Than Fiction.
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Feb 18, 2020Whilst jazz and dance are at the forefront of this album’s heart, you can trace a multitude of other genres under its surface, from grime to rock and funk to pop. It’s an ambitious work full of scope, where Boyd continues to innovate and impress.
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Q MagazineFeb 12, 2020The result is an album designed for the feet as much as the head. [Mar 2020, p.106]
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Feb 14, 2020his is a record that tries to bottle the intricate energy of jazz improvisation into an orchestrated studio production when it has always been the freedom of live performance that has marked out Boyd as an artist. If he makes room for more of that in the studio, we would have a mighty record.
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Feb 14, 2020This 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.
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Feb 18, 2020Pick 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.
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The WireFeb 12, 2020More passionate and sophisticated than much of what passes for musical eclecticism these days, Dark Matter is a fusion of old and new, acoustic and electronic. [Feb 2020, p.42]
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Feb 12, 2020This is not pastiche 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. [Mar 2020, p.28]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 10
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Mixed: 0 out of 10
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Negative: 0 out of 10
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Mar 11, 2022
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Mar 30, 2020