The Hieroglyphic Being spaceship, piloted by Jamal Moss will soon descend onto Oslo and Jæger for a live show in our basement alongside Øyvind Morken and Prins Thomas as representatives for Rett i Fletta. Jamal Moss’ career is the thing of urban legends. Literally raised on the streets of Chicago, where he would spend the nights in the embrace of various clubbing institutions, all for the sake of a bit of warmth, Chicago’s roots unquestionably, pulse through his veins. His determined musical outlook, started with little more than a drum machine, a rhythmical understanding and a dancers frame of mind, which through the tutelage of local heroes like Adonis and Ron Hardy, both directly and indirectly, he has carved out an unparalleled career. He’s appropriated many different faces, from Africans with Mainframes to Chicago Bad Boys and of course Hieroglyphic Being in his pursuit of engaging with club music at every level from Dj to label-head.
As an artist and DJ he embodies the heritage of this music, always looking to remind the revisionists of the history and origins of this black dance music. As Hieroglyphic being he keeps alive the most exploratory version of Techno’s vision, while his label Mathematics embodies all these elements and more, a definitive voice in electronic music’s echelon for uncompromising, forward-thinking club music. From the artwork to the artists represented, there’s a future aesthetic throughout the label, that’s firmly rooted in the ideological traditions of this thing we’ve come to understand us club music.
None understand this vision more than Øyvind Morken, who week in and out dig through club music’s past, present and future, all in the hope of communicating a bit of this music’s ideology to his audience. His sets can go from afrobeat o Techno in the space of a bar and in between contrasting, schizophrenic segue-ways he finds the primordial root of the music that ties it all together. Who best then to ask about Hieroglyphic Being and, what better example of the musical ideology of the artist is there other than the label than presents Moss’ whole musical universe. With that in mind we asked Øyvind to pick his favourite Mathematics moments, for us to dig a little deeper through the Jamal Moss’/Hieroglyphic Being psyche.
Mark Forshaw – Neptanus
Øyvind Morken: “Techno the way i like it, the old school way. Heavy, but still has a good portion of “music” in it. The whole EP is great.”
Faces Of Drums – The Lost Tracks 1
“Steve Poindexter and Jamal Moss beating out some industrial jack. Quite funny to see the look on some faces when this gets dropped.”
John Heckle – Life On Titan
“Hard to chose from Heckle’s stuff, since so much of it is so good, but I think this is the track that has had the most spins from me.”
Le Matin – Mange De La Marde
“Synth-poppy electro-deephouse. I guess the more industrial stuff and synth stuff appeal’s to Jamal as he was a regular at Chicago’s Medusa’s club, a teen club for weirdos, where leather-clad synthers met up with house music jackers on the dance floor.”