Everybody Hertz
There’s no doubting the enlightened creative vision and outlandish chops of prolific Chicago producer Jamal Moss. Operating since 1996 under his Hieroglyphic Being guise – one of many aliases – the scope of Moss’ work has seen him dabble fearlessly in no-holds-barred electronica, avant-jazz, acid house, Detroit-ish techno and his own Afrofuturist “raw-beat science”.
A serial collaborator, he’s allied with the likes of Marshall Allen (Sun Ra Arkestra), Shabaka Hutchings (The Comet Is Coming), percussionist Sarathy Korwar and countless others, veering between defining imprints such as Ninja Tune, Warp, Soul Jazz and his own Mathematics Recordings. Very much forging his own intergalactic path, there’s no one else quite like him. You can begin to understand why he’s such a difficult artist to pigeonhole.
Crucially, despite critical kudos for his prodigious, genre-bending output, Moss has never fully got his due, beyond a limited circle of those in the know. Perhaps that might change with the release of this magnificent and audacious new album under the moniker of Universal Harmonies & Frequencies, which sees the restless innovator join forces with Polish saxophonist, composer and kindred spirit Jerzy Ma˛czyn´ski.
It’s an inspired hook-up. Hitting a mystic sweet spot somewhere between Jeff Mills, Ron Hardy, Phuture, Larry “Mr Fingers” Heard, Sun Ra and Jon Hassell, ‘Tune In’ is a remarkably coherent record, a lucid and cosmic psych transmission that evolves and elevates Moss’ “rhythmic cubism” and “synth expressionism” to another level.
The resulting tracks are hefty but sinuous, the flow smooth and florid, a testament to his and Ma˛czyn´ski’s consummate improv skills and the obvious chemistry between them. But this is definitely not an album you can second-guess. You’re never sure where the duo are likely to lead you – that’s the beauty and nature of improvisation – and they duly keep you on your toes throughout, cutting loose and expressing themselves to the max. And yet, there’s more to this densely layered millefeuille than meets the eye.
Although the plaudits for ‘Tune In’ will primarily go to Moss and Ma˛czyn´ski, their fruitful collab – initially comprising 26 long-form compositions, with Moss on synths and vocals, and Ma˛czyn´ski on sax/electronics – was properly knocked into shape via extensive post-production twiddling from engineer Rein De Sauvage Nolting (aka Amsterdam producer RDS), who also deserves a lot of credit here.
Having selected the final 12 tracks (alongside project instigator and Yeyeh label head Pieter Jansen, whose smart idea it was to get Moss and Ma˛czyn´ski in the studio), De Sauvage Nolting and Ma˛czyn´ski reworked and “re-produced” them, in consultation with Moss, into the final versions, gilded with even more effects and a whole “digital band of reed instruments”.
Sonically, ‘Tune In’ has had the kitchen sink thrown at it, but far from being cluttered, it sounds astonishingly assured and comfortable in its own skin. Right from the inexorable synth/sax fusion and squall of the opening title track, it lets rip and never lets up.
‘Multidimensional Transformation’ is a warming and head-nodding acid house groove, punctuated with soft blasts of Ma˛czyn´ski’s sax as Moss channels his spiritual side, exhorting us to “Feel the vibrations… manifestations”. ‘Sam-Sa-Ra’ skitters and bumps along, lost in its own hypnotic rhythm. ‘The Book Of Forbidden Knowledge’ and ‘Call Of The Wild’ offer a temporary but intoxicating interlude of sorts, their beatific ambience suffused by more parping sax, before the relentless drum machine stomp and coruscating electronics of ‘Searching 4 Spirituality Without Religion’ pound your synapses into submission like a jackhammer. It’s all monumentally good, but ‘The Fifth Style’, with its rubbery Tangerine Dream arpeggiations and outré jazz flurries, really is the business.
Being plugged into this expansive and breathtaking sound world – properly allowing yourself to be subsumed by it – induces a deeply heightened and exalted altered state. Everyday scenes and details seem to take on vivid and wondrous new hues, peaking with the “hallucinatory exoticism” of the closing track ‘The Emerald Tablet’. Pure, unalloyed alchemy. Then suddenly it’s all over and you’re back down to terra firma with a bump, dazed and discombobulated, but wholly elated. What a trip.
While Jerzy Ma˛czyn´ski should rightly be afforded equal billing, ‘Tune In’ feels very much like the apogee of Jamal Moss’ oeuvre as Hieroglyphic Being to date. Impossible to classify or compartmentalise, but very easy to fall for, this left-field tour de force – a nailed-on future classic – will surely be the tipping point that finally brings him the wider attention he so richly deserves. More than ever, his time is now.
