Goldie

小简介
作为Drum and Bass界最有影响力的DJ，Goldie的存在就代表着一个时代的音乐和时尚潮流。90年代最令人瞩目的DJ Goldie出身于品流复杂的贫民区。拥有苏格兰、牙买加混杂血统的他从小在不同的寄养家庭中长大，这种缺乏爱与支持的凄凉童年经历却也不经意地挖掘了他对于Hip-Hop、霹雳舞及涂鸦艺术上的独特造诣。在Goldie的少年时期，他经常出现于街头涂鸦的纪录片，并且花大量时间在纽约和迈阿密兜售定制的金牙。Goldie的创作之路并不如想象中顺利。92年他化名为Metalheadz推出首批作品并没有引起预计中的波澜，而93年的单曲《Terminator》则因充斥着不协调的工业噪音备受质疑。但一切到了首张专辑《Timeless》的发行便突然有了转机，专辑成功地再现了杂乱的历史，而人们对这历史的盲目认同更加刺激了Goldie，因此它不是为了任何俱乐部而做，而只是为了告诉你不能够忽略、抹煞这段历史。其中的作品——《Angel》开始有了人声的介入、《Sea of Tears》则融入了吉他、贝斯和呜咽的女声。面对突然而至的好评，Goldie坦言：“也许它听起来不错，但总有些黑暗在里头，这是种心情。我的成长并不令人愉快，每个人都有自己的角落，《Sea of Tears》就是我的。”随着《Timeless》的横扫全球，从此一发不可收拾。96年Goldie推出了首张集结Metalheadz旗下DJ创作之超级精选《Platinum Breakz》，顿时掀起一股Jungle狂热旋风；紧接着在98年又再接再厉推出第二张精选大碟《Platinum Breakz II》。同一年，他转战南美与Bjork进行合作，并“野心勃勃”地推出又一张高品质的专辑《Saturnz Return》，其中包括一首长达60分钟的作品《Mother》。“这张专辑十分大众化。我要打破那种认为第一张专辑好，第二张就不可能好的迷信。这迷信敲敲我的门，我把它拽进来，然后踢它的脑袋。”这是Goldie的张扬自信，但他确实做到了。在Goldie的音乐中我们总能清晰地读出他的心情。或许音乐不仅仅是武器、是宣泄，对于他来说音乐更像一个隐秘而安全的藏身地。他是一个真实的人，却又是虚幻的，注意他的一举一动，注意他手下滑出的每一个音符，你看到了你听到了，可却是如此难以捉摸。他永远是矛盾的统一，傲慢而又迷人。或许只能如他所言：“我是条变色龙，总是在不断地改变。”
by John Bush
The first superstar produced by the breakbeat jungle movement, Goldie popularized drumnbass as a form of musical expression just as relevant for living-room contemplation as techno had become by the early 90s. Though he hardly developed the style, and his later reliance on engineers like Rob Playford and Optical to capture his sound puts into question his true musical importance, Goldie became one of the first personalities in British dance music, his gold teeth and b-boy attitude placing him leagues away from the faceless bedroom boffins that had become the norm in intelligent dance music. For the first time, England had a beat maestro and tough-guy head who could match the scores of larger-than-life hip-hop stars America had produced, and the high profile of drumnbass as the first indigenously British dance music made Goldie a figure of prime importance. After spending several years working on his production skills at Reinforced Records (the home of 4hero), he founded Metalheadz Records, which released seminal dark-yet-intelligent singles by Source Direct, Photek, J. Majik, Optical, Lemon D, Wax Doctor, and Peshay, among others. In 1995, Goldie released Timeless, one of jungles first and best full-length works of art. The album put him squarely at the top of the drumnbass heap — at least in the minds of critics and mainstream listeners — though his follow-up, SaturnzReturn, displayed an ambitious, personal side of Goldie hardly in keeping with jungles producer mentality.
A native of Walsall, England, Goldie was born to a Scottish-Jamaican couple and put up for adoption. He bounced around child-care homes and several sets of foster parents during his childhood years, and became fascinated with the rise of hip-hop, breakdancing, and graffiti art. By 1986, he was involved with breakdancing crews around his home of Wolverhampton; after making several trips to London for all-day breakdancing events (and to see hip-hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa), Goldie appeared in the English documentary on graffiti art called Bombing. He also spent time in New York and Miami (working in a market stall selling customized gold teeth), but returned to England by 1988.
For a time, Goldie worked at the Try 1 shop in Walsall (also selling gold teeth), then moved to London. He began hanging out with two fellow heads from the British hip-hop scene, Nellee Hooper and 3-D (later of Massive Attack), and by 1991 hed been introduced to the breakbeat culture that birthed jungle; at the seminal club night Rage, DJs Grooverider and Fabio pitched ancient breakbeats up to 45 rpm, blending their creations with the popular rave music of the time. Goldie was hooked on the sound of raw breakbeat techno, and he gradually switched his allegiance to jungle from the British hip-hop scene that later generated trip-hop.
Through his girlfriend DJ Kemistry (later to make her name with the mixing duo Kemistry & Storm), Goldie hooked up with Dego and Mark Mac, two of the most influential figures in the emerging drumnbass scene. The duos Reinforced Records and recordings as 4hero were fostering an increasingly artistic attitude to the music, and Goldie learned much about breakbeat production and engineering at their studios. He recorded his first single as Ajax Project, then debuted on Reinforced as Metalheadz with two 1992 singles, Killermuffin and Menace. The 1993 single Terminator broke him into the jungle scene — besides pioneering the crucial jungle concept of time-stretching (basically extending a sample without altering its pitch) the single evinced the growing separation between the uplifting rave scene and its emerging dark side, reliant on breakbeats and restless vibes.
The name was later taken for his influential Metalheadz Records, which released material from a legion of crucial jungle artists: Photek, Doc Scott, Dillinja, Source Direct, Peshay, J Majik, Alex Reece, Lemon D, and Optical among others. Later singles such as Angel and remixes for 4heros Reinforced label spread Goldies fame, and in 1995 he signed a contract with London Records. His first major-label single was Timeless, and his debut album of the same name followed in August 1995. He gained additional fame in early 1996, when an American tour supporting Björk sparked a relationship between the two and led to a brief engagement period before they called off a wedding. Goldie resurfaced in 1998 with a high-profile follow-up, SaturnzReturn, an epic two-disc set including one track, Mother, that broke the 60-minute barrier itself. The album tanked with critics and fans, leading to a return to the underground later that year with the Ring of Saturn EP. Goldie mixed a two-disc volume in the INCredible series of mix albums compiled by Ovum, as well as a number of Metalheadz-centric sets. Malice in Wonderland, a production album credited to Rufige Kru, was completed for a 2007 release.