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Baker's Dozen

More Than Entertainment: Moses Boyd's Favourite Music
Michael Appouh , February 19th, 2020 09:44

Following the release of his Dark Matter album, London jazz scene mainstay Moses Boyd guides Michael Appouh through the music that shaped it, from N/E//R*/D to Dizzee, Jeff Buckley and hymns of praise

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Miles Davis - Nefertiti
When I got into that album I must have been 19 and in the same way with Andrew Hill’s Point Of Departure, it definitely changed something from the minute I put it on, more so than any of these records for me. It was around the same time as the Blue Note sale at FOPP, when I would buy loads of CDs and listen to them top to bottom a few times over. The album has the most beautiful dark quality to it and the fact it's called Nefertiti, was this all planned? Are you trying to reference this Kemetic Queen? And then even how do you even do that beyond the notes, because it's there when you listen to the mix and the atmosphere. We can't answer it, but he must have. This tune in particular, ‘Fall’, it's very cyclical, it's very repetitive. There's a riff that just keeps coming back and puts you in this really interesting, beautiful trance and it's so dark, but it's so beautiful. I guess on Dark Matter it’s that thing as well. Darkness to me isn’t bad, it’s another thing. Dark and light. My brother made me laugh the other day when he asked ‘If there's a speed of light, is there a speed of dark?’ and I was like ‘Oh My God’, but I just think our relationship with light and dark is very interesting. The minute you say something’s dark people think negatively and that's not what it's about. Dark is sick too, it’s beautiful. There’s so much intricacy, delicacy, beauty in that.