The music of Goldie represents an important transitional phase in jungle’s development into drum and bass. Where jungle tended to draw deeply on reggae tradition, Goldie’s music turned to soul and R&B for inspiration and vocal source material. Timeless, his 1995 debut, is filled with smooth atmospheres and soul-derived vocals (notice in particular the piano-driven “State of Mind,” with its strings and bedroom R&B singing by Lorna Harris), but these are regularly complicated by the jittery double-speed breakbeats and freaky dubwise effects of old-school junglism.

– Rick Anderson