CLASSIC ALBUM
Goldie Timeless
FFRR, 1995
Words by Roy Spencer
© Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images
This month we’ll talk about an opus of breakbeat science, soulful vocals, and super charged emotional soundscapes that would get into the charts, and then under the skin of an entire generation. It would be the blueprint for drum & bass, a soundtrack to the city, and an album that would go on to live up it its name, with every year that passed.
The man responsible for creating this masterpiece was, of course, Goldie. He’d already lived enough lifetimes for a hundred people by this point, and definitely had something to say, but needed help saying it.
“I went into the studio with an album already in my head,” he says. “But, as a person who doesn’t engineer you have to conceive the music first in your head, as an artist, then shape what has to be done, and how to do it.”
Old mentors, 4hero, shared the boards at times, but the bulk of the heavy lifting was done by engineer and Moving Shadow boss Rob Playford, whose Stevenage semi provided the studio space.
“He was a very good engineer,” says Goldie. “But I pushed it and pushed and pushed it, technically. Knowing that it would work, when he didn’t think it would flow.”
Simple Minds drummer, Mel Gaynor, was drafted in. His playing style brought an extra-generational influence, and new tonality to the resulting chopped and layered drum programming.
“He was a huge part,” says Goldie. “He replayed breaks, and helped us make our own take on something. It got so we weren’t just taking, but reproducing and breaking down content and reconstructing it.”
The breakneck soundtrack of club nights like Rage also pointed the way, as Goldie and crew took the samplers to their limits, forming complex structures as interlocking as wildstyle graffiti. It would push this music further than before, and onto a world stage.
“I knew it deserved more of a platform, and this was the platform,” says Goldie. “Conceptually, musically, vocally, technically. All of those boxes had to be ticked to get that album made. I wanted to bring a classicist impressionism into making this music, and give it the respect it deserves.”