New > Moses Boyd > announces new EP ‘Absolute Zero’ > on Exodus / The Vinyl Factory Records

UK jazz pioneer

Moses Boyd

announces

‘Absolute Zero’ EP

out Friday 4th August 2017

Exodus Records / The Vinyl Factory
A1. After Tomorrow
A2. Square Up
B1. Sirens
B2. Absolute Zero

2017 is the year a young vital generation of British jazz musicians have broken through in the world’s clubs, festivals and magazines. With experimentation and cross-pollination with genres like jungle and grime, the scene is winning over fans on radio stations like NTS and broadcasters like Boiler Room.

If there is one artist that can be said to have kick-started the movement it’s Moses Boyd with his ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ debut 12” ‘Rye Lane Shuffle’ out in 2016. From the 2017 perspective, that record has become a mythical grail, the catalyst for the whole scene which is now booming.

Moses grew up in Catford but his roots lie in Jamaica and Dominica. While soul, reggae and classical was played at home, school was filled with the sound of the grime pirates. A drum teacher introduced him to the jazz canon; from Buddy Rich to Elvin Jones. Moses and his small band of revolutionaries started devouring and immersing themselves in the music, jamming four or five times a week, going to Ronnie Scott’s to watch legends like Wynton Marsalis, James Moody and Roy Haynes from the cheap seats behind the bar. They were injecting new blood into the form. As Moses says “when’s the last time anyone saw ten young black kids from South London watching Wynton Marsalis?”

Moses, a Trinity Laban graduate, has taken the genre out of the Conservatories and elite spaces to places young people party and his heaving debut show at Corsica Studios earlier this year with his band Exodus was a testament to this. He’s only getting warmed up but he’s already worked with Four Tet & Floating Points (they mixed his debut EP), toured with Sampha, played with legends Lonnie Liston Smith and Afrobeat originator Tony Allen, toured the world, won a MOBO in 2015 and The John Peel ‘Play More Jazz’ Award from Gilles Peterson’s Worldwide Awards in 2016.

‘Absolute Zero’ is his second solo release, a thrilling fusion of cosmic mind-flight above the London grime. EP opener ‘After Tomorrow’ rocks like a poly-rhythmic Madlib cut. ‘Square Up’ is frenetic and urgent, holding a mesmeric jungle pace. ‘Sirens’ sizzles with tension. ‘Absolute Zero’ is like an oblique reference to grime-father Wiley’s ‘Ice Rinks’. Echoes of grime’s sour synth lines are submerged in his freewheeling virtuoso drum technique. UK Jazz is back and Moses is its prophet.

Vinyl Art Spec:
Artwork by Optigram
Soft Touch Lamination Outer and Inner Sleeves
1 x 180g heavyweight vinyl
4 track EP from Moses Boyd
Preorder here