London-based duo
Binker & Moses offer an organic, genre-bending, listening, engaging approach to jazz that embraces hip-hop, funk, and avant-garde influences. No mere improvising duo, their remarkable approach is built as much on hooky composition as it is on the freedom principle. Their audiences listen and dance. Saxophonist
Binker Golding and drummer
Moses Boyd are both bandleaders and first-call session players; they came together after working the road and in studios with others, and cut 2016's
Dem Ones. It established them at radio and provided touring opportunities. 2017's conceptual
Journey to the Mountain of Forever included an expanded line-up of musicians (who included
Evan Parker, among others) and cemented their status in the London jazz renaissance. They worked the clubs as a duo and recorded together in the Moses Boyd Exodus. The pair issued a couple of live albums and returned to studio recording with 2022's Feeding the Machine, featuring honorary third member Max Luthert on loops and electronics.
Prior to forming in 2014, both artists studied jazz academically.
Golding attended Middlesex and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and
Boyd, Trinity Laban College. After graduating, they each pursued session work; they met while rehearsing for a session by trumpeter
Abram Wilson. They cemented a creative partnership while serving in the touring band of vocalist
Zara McFarlane and began playing club gigs as a duo late in the year.
In 2016,
Binker & Moses released their Gearbox/Light in the Attic debut album,
Dem Ones, showcasing a dynamic mix of modal jazz, vanguard free-funk, and hip-hop-influenced instrumental jams. Thanks to
Gilles Peterson, and other forward-thinking radio and club DJs, the album found an audience. The set earned the duo the year's MOBO Award for Best Jazz Act, Jazz FM Awards for U.K. Jazz Act of the Year and Breakthrough Act of the Year and the 2106 Parliamentary Jazz Awards as Jazz Newcomer of the Year. That same year, the duo worked British and European clubs together and as part of the revolving Moses Boyd Exodus, issued the Time and Space EP.
In 2017, the duo released the sci-fi-inspired, conceptual double-length
Journey to the Mountain of Forever. The first disc, subtitled "The Realm of Now," was performed solely by the duo. The second, "The Realms of the Infinite," showcased a sextet that included saxophonist
Evan Parker, drummer
Yussef Dayes, trumpeter
Byron Wallen, and harpist Tori Handsley. The set was recorded over two days at
Mark Ronson's Zelig studio direct to a 1960’s Studer C37 1/4” tape machine without edits, overdubs, or a mixdown. Further, the artwork was created by Hugo-winning Welsh sci-fi and fantasy illustrator Jim Burns. The album's June release party at East London's Total Refreshment Centre netted a pair of future live offerings.
The duo's members entertained road and studio work (mostly) separately over the next couple of years.
Golding returned to work with
McFarlane, and played with the Moses Boyd Exodus on 2018's large-band offering Displaced Diaspora.
Boyd played with
Nubya Garcia and others in addition to leading MBE. In 2018,
Binker & Moses released the globally acclaimed
Alive in the East? It was recorded with the sextet at the release party for
Journey to the Mountain of Forever the previous year. In 2019,
Golding issued his leader debut,
Abstractions of Reality Past and Incredible Feathers, with pianist
Joe Armon-Jones, drummer Sam Jones, and bassist
Daniel Casimir, as well as the duo offering
Ex Nihilo with pianist
Elliot Galvin. While
Binker & Moses sought to return to the studio, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented them from doing so. Instead they issued the live duo offering Escape the Flames, taken from the duo's first set performance at their 2017 release party.
In 2019,
Boyd recorded with everyone from
Joe Armon-Jones and
Theon Cross to
Greg Foat and Tori Handsley. The Moses Boyd Exodus (with
Golding as a guest) issued the full-length
Dark Matter in 2020. That year saw the release of
Connect, the final studio album by trumpeter
Charles Tolliver. It featured
Golding sharing saxophone duties with American altoist
Jesse Davis, alongside drummer
Lenny White, bassist
Buster Williams, and pianist Keith Brown. The following year
Golding appeared with bassist
Olie Brice, guitarist
Henry Kaiser, electronicist N. O. Moore, and percussionist
Eddie Prévost on The Secret Handshake with Danger, Vol. 1 from
577 Records, and also with drummer
Steve Noble and bassist John Edwards on
Moon Day.
Binker & Moses convened at
Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios over three days in March 2021. They brought honorary third member Max Luthert (the bassist in MBE) in to create alive loops and add electronic textures. The six-track set was co-produced by Grammy-winner
Hugh Padgham (who also engineered and mixed) and mastering engineer Derek Sheinman, the wholly improvised Feeding the Machine was released by Gearbox in February 2022. ~ Thom Jurek & Matt Collar