OBEY RECORDS Ep. 67: HIEROGLYPHIC BEING
Hieroglyphic Being once-again draws upon the vast scope of experimentation that has defined Chicago’s musical universe over the last half a century – from the birth of house music with the pioneers Ron Hardy Adonis, Lil Louis and others to the radical avant-garde jazz legacy of the city – The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Sun Ra.
Chicago’s musical universe continues to push-further forward today with artists such as Hieroglyphic Being, Angel Bat Dawid, Makaya McCraven, Sun RA Arkestra, Shabaka Hutchins and labels such as International Anthem label and Hieroglyphic Being’s own Mathematics, all continuing to explore radical new music while drawing upon the city’s decidedly Afro-futurist lineage.
Jamal Moss, aka Hieroglyphic Being, remains at all-times a radical one-off musical explorer, a resolute pioneer of an avant-garde dance music aesthetic taking lineage from the founding fathers of acid house such as Ron Hardy and Adonis, and pushing the musical form to its own limits, adding his own harder almost industrial edge to this unique sound, which Moss sometimes describes as ‘Outsider House’ or One of the Originators Of Lo-Fi Electronic music or referencing the earlier avant-garde musical resident and pioneer, Sun Ra – ‘Rhythmic Cubism’ and ‘Cosmic Be-Bop’.
Hieroglyphic Being’s music crosses many boundaries and has led to remixes of a wide and diverse list of artists from St Vincent to Hans-Joachim Roedelius (the pioneering German electronic composer and member of Cluster), King Gizzard and the Lizard Gizzard to Adonis, Peggy Gou, Nina Kravitz and many more. In similar fashion his music has appeared on Ghostly/Spectral, Warp, Ninja, Axis and his own Mathematics Recordings.