Boring & Weird Historical Music

As hard to categorise as it is to stop listening to, Boring & Weird Historical Music is a genre-defying aural feast from South London sound engineer and producer, David Webb – better known for his work under the moniker Chemo with mainstream hip-hop and commercial artists such as Rag’n’Bone Man. Using the pseudonym Telemachus, (after a figure from Greek mythology) for his more esoteric solo projects, this release comes six years after In Morocco, for which he spent three months living in the country, absorbing North Africa’s rich musical culture by osmosis.

Returning to his earlier influences, the inspiration for this album comes from the jungle, trip-hop and West African highlife beats that Webb grew up listening to on the pirate radio stations beaming into his parent’s South London kitchen. Loosely connected by a running narrative based on Vietnamese folk tales and read by Indian actor Subhash Chander, the 15 mainly instrumental tracks are enriched by sparingly applied vocal collaborations from the likes of Killa P, Chris Belson, RHI and Penelope Oddity – the latter’s track ‘Beaten Gold’ sounding pleasingly reminiscent of an early Prince record played backwards. Calming and curative one moment, unnerving and challenging – in the way that music that seeks to move art forward must sound – the next, this is a noteworthy addition to the library of any lover of world or contemporary, even avant-garde, British music. Weird? Yes. Boring? Never.