After more than a decade spent reshaping peak-time tech house with a string of club records, Liverpool duo CamelPhat finally delivered the album their back catalogue always seemed to be building towards. Released via Sony’s RCA label in October 2020, Dark Matter is a 21-track debut that spreads their signature melodic sound across a guest list most artists would kill for—Noel Gallagher, Foals’ Yannis Philippakis, ARTBAT, Elderbrook, Skream, Jem Cooke, Maverick Sabre and plenty more besides.
The sheer volume of collaborations could easily have left the record feeling like a compilation, but the duo’s production keeps everything tethered to a single vision. Hypercolour, built around Yannis’ unmistakable vocal, is the standout—an understated four-to-the-floor groover with warm, rolling bass, shimmering pads and a breakdown that genuinely breathes. For a Feeling slows the pace with ARTBAT and RHODES, its melancholic arpeggios and weighty kick drum owing more to progressive house, whilst Dance with My Ghost lets Elderbrook do what he does best, his yearning chorus floating over cavernous, reverb-drenched drums.
The most talked-about moment is inevitably Not Over Yet. Recruiting Noel Gallagher to cover the 1997 Grace classic was a bold move, but CamelPhat treat the song with genuine respect—the soaring, stadium-sized chorus is left gloriously intact, wrapped in string-laden breakdowns that sound enormous through a festival rig. Elsewhere, Panic Room still shines as the record’s emotional core, Au/Ra’s vocal as affecting now as when it first soundtracked the summer of 2017.
Dark Matter is the debut album from Liverpool duo CamelPhat.
The two ‘Dark Matter’ edits do exactly what great reworks should: Cola is stripped of its radio-friendly gloss and rebuilt with more space, the iconic hook landing even harder for it, whilst Breathe gets a brooding, extended workout alongside Jem Cooke. The production throughout is precise—gated reverb, weighty sub bass, drums that hit with real punch—and the sequencing rarely lets the energy sag for long.
At 21 tracks it is undeniably long, and a handful of the deeper cuts like Rabbit Hole and Expect Nothing drift by without leaving much of an impression. But as a debut statement from a duo who spent years building towards this moment, Dark Matter is confident and generous, and it rewards repeat listens more than its length might suggest.
It isn’t flawless, but Dark Matter succeeds where many star-studded debuts fail: it sounds unmistakably like CamelPhat. A strong, ambitious first album that should cement their place as one of the genre’s most dependable acts.
