As Hieroglyphic Being, Chicago’s Jamal Moss has long fused house, industrial and jazz into a mutant strain of proto-club futurism. Dance Music 4 Bad People, his first album for Smalltown Supersound, is both culmination and rupture, an erratic, hypnotic ecosystem where memory, myth and machine logic spiral outward.
The tracks feel gestated from the same strange soil, their stems branching into personal memory, cultural myth and glitching code. From the fractal trance state of The Secret Teachings Of The Ages to the chugging throb of U R Not Dying Ur Just Waking Up, Moss maps an inner terrain that is industrial, organic and cosmic.
The title and concept of the album are Moss’s response to what he sees as the hollowing out of contemporary club culture. He has been critical of today’s dancefloors as spaces of false inclusion and muted resentment, where house music’s original promise of transformation and joy has been replaced by commodified gesture and clout chasing. The title Dance Music 4 Bad People is a darkly humorous jab at to sectarianism and division, an attempt to reclaim dance music for those who still seek collective release.
More harmonically rich than earlier releases where bass and kick reigned, this album places vintage organ motifs at its linguistic centre. These recurring textures make the record distinctive, not only within Moss’s discography but within contemporary dance music at large. The rhythmic core is still there, but it is now part of a wider ecology and field of tonal flux.
The result is a work of sonic fiction. The Hieroglyphic Being is not just an alias, but a vessel for coded transmissions in the mode of Kodwo Eshun’s theory of sonic fiction. The Hieroglyphic Being emerges as a messenger of light, to re-enchant and ignite spark that been dampened by late capitalist cultural hegemony.
Dance Music 4 Bad People transcends simple categorisation, aiming to foster connection and understanding in a world often fractured by division. Through his signature raw and lo-fi blend of driving rhythms and evocative synth work, Hieroglyphic Being invites listeners to shed judgment and embrace the liberating essence of house music.
