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

With substantial contributions from engineer/producer Rob Playford, 4Hero’s Dego and Marc Marc and vocalist Dianne Charlemagne, Goldie’s Timeless album arrived in 1995. A mix of dramatic, futurist drum & bass and d&b-adjacent soul/electronica, sonically it’s an incredibly rich and complex album full of extreme audio juxtapositions: the softest, creamiest of synth washes matched to the deepest, rawest low-frequency basslines, smooth soul vocals and euphoric melodies on top of angular, needle-sharp, tungsten-clad beats. Bold, cocky even — it’s called Timeless, and you could argue that with a twenty-minute opening track and three other tracks coming in over ten minutes, it’s a little overindulgent — but it’s good enough in terms of songwriting, production and sheer sonic impressiveness to justify its sprawling length.

– Harold Heath