Hieroglyphic Being: A Visitor From Someone Else's Memories
Mathematics Recordings

Jamal Moss's latest twelve-inch on his Mathematics Recordings label is instantly identifiable as Hieroglyphic Being material. Intricate melodic patterns and jacking house rhythms intertwine in four heady tracks that somehow manage to blend tribal, experimental, and interstellar elements in a way that seems perfectly natural.

Propelled by an unrelenting locomotive pulse, “Ravished by the Truth” juggles synthetic syncopations and spacey string motifs for seven minutes without letting a single ball drop. At two minutes, the beatless synthesizer setting, “The Visitation,” can't help but feel like a stop-gap when sandwiched in between the meatier tracks. The B-side's “A Visitor from Someone Else's Memories” stokes classic Chicago House fire for eight minutes with a head-spinning weave of claps, hot-wired synth motifs, and beats. The kick drum holds together a cyclonic swirl that would threaten to split apart were it not for the track's anchoring rhythm structures. The most hypnotic of the EP's four tracks, “Sacrifices of the Heart Part 1,” is also the most overtly tribal in its focus on an ancient flute motif and tom-tom patterns, though Moss also works a furious house swing into the tune in the hi-hat showers that explode throughout.

March 2010