Track by track with Goldie
Timeless
“This is a suite, with three movements. I was always going to have Timeless as the intro, with Inner City Life going into Pressure then into the track, Jah.
“I think it reached 14 minutes, and Rob [Playford] didn’t think it could go any further. And I said, ‘It can. All we need to do is insert Jah after the Pressure section’.
“It was about using Inner City Life to establish the inner city, and what it was like to be in that environment. And then try and create a disparity between the way the track, from a velocity point of view, would move up and down. Which it does – it descends and moves…
“That was something I learned from listening to [the Pat Metheny Group’s 1984 jazz album] First
Circle. The way he moves through the composition, with [keyboardist] Lyle Mays, is just groundbreaking for me. I kind of used the ethos from listening to Metheny enough to understand that the arrangement would be key to this project.
“The ‘Jah’, of course, was very Freudian for my Rastafarian days, and also the idea that we turn to faith after we lose everything in that pressure. Then it goes full circle after.
“The idea of finding someone is the most important part of it all. That becomes the fable of what this whole track is all about.”
Saint Angel
“This was all about me looking at European hard techno, and seeing what I could sample in order to create the ultimate ‘stab’ sound. At that time people were looking at stabs to evoke this dark period that we were going through.
“That became the absolute stab for me in any of the work I had done. If you look at tracks like I’ll Be There For You, which came on the second album, that was another great stab. Or tracks like Dark Rider. It was about looking at the nuances of what layered sampling could do.
“The breaks in this were all based on things like [The Commodores'] Assembly Line, and all those drum breaks that were really synonymous with hip-hop. Especially a lot of New York, East Coast hip-hop. They really had to serve a really strong purpose with what I wanted to create – this total B-boy track.
“This track was very different to what was out at the time, as well. It was really ahead of its time, even for Timeless. It’s there as a standalone record, too, in its own time. Sea Of Tears is not a standalone record. Saint Angel is.”
“One of the big concepts was using people like Robin Smith, a beautiful singer/songwriter, who’s worked with some amazing people.
“I’d have improv sessions with him where I’d be shouting in his ear, and whispering at times, to get melodies out which we’d record into MIDI info, which was taken on an electronic piano.
“Using that MIDI info was very important. That was the flatbed for the whole of Timeless, and the chord arrangements into You & Me, which Robin did a fantastic piano intro for. It took the album into a different calibre.”
State Of Mind
“The inspiration for this track was taken from Nobukazu Takemura. His [Child’s View] album was a massive influence. It’s not on Spotify. It’s pre-internet. It’s an album that a lot of collectors have and was just a massive influence. I used to listen to that album every day going to the studio in Stevenage. It inspired me to make this downtempo record.
“I always wanted to do a downtempo record to prove to people outside of drum&bass, who would always say, ‘Burn them! They’re witches!’ That we could actually make music at their tempo. State Of Mind was that.
“And lyrically, it was the first song that I had actually written, from beginning to end. It was always about the songwriting. I never really got credited for that – for being a maverick songwriter within the realm of what we were doing. If you listen to Inner City Life or You & Me, they’re very simple, and the best music usually is. But State Of Mind was a little more complex.
“Justina Curtis also plays some really amazing chord arrangements on here. Mel Gaynor is on drums. And the vocals are by Lorna Harris, who was someone I knew from Birmingham, many years ago. I got her to London to do a project for Howie B that never bore any fruit, but we worked on this.”
Sea Of Tears
“Again, it was Mel [Gaynor] on drums for this one. I just wanted to do a track that was completely outside the box, and outside of DnB. And again, Pat Metheny’s influence came out on that track, a lot…
“Justina Curtis also plays again. She really helped to get us over the line. The chords she had on these keyboards she had were just amazing. She had these different presets that she pulled out. We’d look at those as samples and rearrange them, and just use them as a bed to build on.
“And, or course, my son’s voice is on Sea Of Tears [Jamie Price aka Jamie Goldikus Jr.]. He was nine at the time and would visit me for the weekend. I got him to the studio to do this one line.
“It was a very upsetting track. I had to leave Miami. It was also the quiet before the storm, with that track. If I’d never have gone back I’d never had made Timeless and done what I’d done. Life is what it is… It’s the spiritual track on the album.”
Angel
“This was semi-engineered by Dego and Marc [aka 4hero]. That was my
“IT’S THE STORY OF A BOY. THAT’S WHAT IT’S ABOUT”
thank you to those guys, and just an opportunity to go back and have sessions with them.
“The memory was very limited with the Akai samplers, though. They didn’t really know how to get their heads around the S1000s and 3200s. I did a lot of pre-recording, if you like, and took that information to Rob Playford’s studio, which we could then extend on.
“The tracks Angel, You & Me, and the track Still Life were definitely me and Dego, all the way, me and Dego on those. And then it was Marc on Angel, with the drum breaks, in terms of programming. And, of course,
Saint Angel and Angel are from the same session.
“It was Marc and Dego that were from the camp of Reinforced [Records] and this was definitely Reinforced music, in the root notes of what this was, yes. I just did a lot of the technical stuff, after.”
Sensual
“If you listen to this you can tell that it was Mark Knopfler’s line ‘I love my MTV’ [from the starting section of
Dire Straits’ track Money For
Nothing]. That was the intro!
“That idea was taken from that very intro. But, it was a completely different genre. A completely different decade, and even era. But the same 100% influence. That’s what makes a great album – finding those influences, and thinking completely outside of the box.
“Also, listen to the drums. If you listen to it carefully, if you’re an engineer or a programmer, and you take away and eliminate any chord structures or vocal content and you listen to the drums, solo, you will hear that they don’t repeat at all. It’s like shuffling cards.
“The concept came from those nail pictures that you push your hands into to get a 3D print. I wanted to get that same fluidity. That was Sensual. And, also, Kemistry worked in the same way in terms of how the drums were programmed.”
Kemistry
“This track was written for Kemistry [the late drum & bass DJ Valerie Olukemi A Olusanya, of DJ duo Kemistry & Storm fame].
“She was my girl, at the time. And we were amicable, but we’d separated because a lot of stuff was getting in the way. I just wanted to make the perfect vocal track for the perfect human being, as far as I was concerned. She was a great spirit.
“It’s a slightly dark track, too. Like Tim Burton. It’s a melancholy love song, this. There’s versions of this that are immense, as well. It’s stood the test of time, with all the versions of this. To me, it’s like looking at love letters, so to speak…
“There are some amazing new reworks of this track coming, too. They are outstandingly good. [Producers] Grey Code and OneMind approached Kemistry, and each one is completely different.”
You & Me
“This was always going to be the album closer. I mean, the arrangement was always going to be the arrangement. There was never any question about the arrangement of the album.
“Timeless has to be listened to in its entirety. It has to be listened to in one sitting, if you like. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore [laughs].
But, that’s what it is. It’s something that you sit down, and go through, to hear the story of a boy. That’s what it’s about.
“So, You & Me was this classical curtain closing, if you like. This classicist impressionism, you know?
“Weirdly enough – well, not that weirdly really – but, me and [composer and Timeless collaborator] Robin [Smith] have revisited You & Me’, and it’s absolutely breathtaking because it’s now become a classical peace of music.
“The new version of this has been re-drummed by Adam Betts, ferociously. Same with Sea Of Tears.
I’ve been remaking them, which will come later in the year. Well, after the [25th anniversary reissue of Timeless]
album is out. It’s like those tracks have just grown up and it’s amazing to see.”