A Guy Called Gerald - Black Secret Technology vs. Goldie - Timeless

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

mystique is like the perfect goldie tune title too. i've never really been able to get past the sludgy sound of BST. Jah the seventh seal is the best thing for me on either record. can't believe someone called goldie's production flat upthread, that track sounds like it's coming from another dimension.

"Jah The Seventh Seal" is great but I think I would always have to go with "Angel" or (possibly)
"Kemistry" as best - the incongruous mixture of light and dark that Goldie managed on those tunes seems like his greatest contribution IMO.

yeah what as it bjork said about jungle? "exploding with fierce joy" or something. describes a lot of timeless, imo

Seriously I always try to imagine what it would have been like to hear "Angel" in 1993, what a mindf**k it would have seemed.

ha, my love of jah the 7th is probably a by-product of Kodwo Eshun's description of it more than anything else. i really need to listen to the whole thing again. i remember my mad anticipation of the release though.

The only way I can really conceptualize this is that on the one hand Black Secret Technology might be the best album ever, on the other hand Saint Angel is the impossible groove.

Yeah "Saint Angel" is insane isn't it, jungle idealised?

It's hard for me to even describe, but the way the beat sort of runs on, stutters and keeps falling down does my head in.

uh-uh--uh!

exactly!

i think this specific trick was very influential on ill blu, for one, I always think of it as the faltering gallop.

although it's less streamlined than that on "saint angel"

it WAS a complete mindfuck tim

my brain didn't even process jungle as music when i first heard it in 93, it just sounded like someone had strung neon firecrackers all throughout a two bad mice track and was detonating them every ten seconds

Regardless of the ambition (double album, extra long tracks, self-delcaring mainstream-bustin' genre flagbearer) I felt the sound design on Timeless was a benchmark for years and still its saving grace, altho no more than FSOL at the same time. It's only the thematic ideas being often so overbearing in new-agey-ness (dolphins maaan) that hamper it (again see FSOL and also BT's 'Ima' which was like a deep house equivalent to this in a few ways), plus this general reaction people often have against prog-like epics compared to something seen as edgier (Timeless is simultaneously aiming at innovation but also a jazz-based musical obedience probably down to the influence and encouragement of 4Hero) and more instant. Possibly some prefer BST because it sounds more 'bedroomy' and more raw yet more 'secretive' - less personal (Gerald, unlike celeb-in-waiting Goldie, not wanting to tell you all about himself, heart on sleeve).

and also BT's 'Ima' which was like a deep house equivalent to this in a few ways

This is so true! Although in my memory (I no longer have my copy) 'Ima' was more proggy than deep? Maybe deep-prog.

ha, my love of jah the 7th is probably a by-product of Kodwo Eshun's description of it more than anything else. i really need to listen to the whole thing again. i remember my mad anticipation of the release though.

― jed_, Tuesday, 11 September 2012 01:36 (12 hours ago) Bookmark

Dillinja's Jah the Seventh Seal is a magnified detail from the Timeless
canvas, a slowed-down blow-up of one hyperdimension. Breaks become chains as time turns to metal. Rhythm phaseshifts from needlepoint to
industrial in a war between machine lifeforms on the metallic plateaux.

Two drumbreaks are processed until they rattle like chrome snaketails,
panning in opposite ways around your head. When they meet they
swallow each other and reverse backwards. Simultaneously, machinic
groans and wrenching metallic sighs heave and drift across the
overlapping orbits of both breaks.

These arhythmic noises compel a kind of bodily seizure, an agonizing
muscular crisis, as if the motor coordination needed for walking, let
alone dancing, has just crashed from too much sensation. The seething
metal fatigue of Jah the Seventh Seal induces outbreaks of literally
headwreckin' synapse-warping. Your head becomes this giant muscle,
this mindless, agonized organ that doesn't know where to put itself.

(d/led pdf & ocr, don't worry i'm not insane)

This is so true! Although in my memory (I no longer have my copy) 'Ima' was more proggy than deep? Maybe deep-prog.

I would have definitely tagged it as prog, I mean " Deep Skies"

Lol at that Kodwo Eshun description... I tried to read More Brilliant Than the Sun at least two times, but each time I just couldn't go on after the first 50 pages or so. It felt like he had some interesting ideas, but they were buried to deep within his post-futurist techno poetry.

congrats at least on not saying THR RHYTHMATRIX kodwo

does he go on to talk about "the paranormal in four form" or is that a different chapter?

post-futurist techno poetry good, intersting ideas bad

Timeless just edges it over BST for me, but re: the discussion upthread you can count me in as one of the weirdos that prefers Parallel Universe to both.

weirdo

i feel like BST and parallel universe are more "subtle" in the mike skinner sense of the word (ie "boring")

whereas goldie's grabs you by the neck and says DRUM AND BASS MOTHERFUKER, HOUR LONG SYMPHONIC SUITE TO FOLLOW!!!!!!!!!

BST feels to me that it has aged in a different way from Timeless; like BST has bits where I think "I can see how this appealed so much to me" while Timeless has parts that still just grab and appeal in the same way, even though they don't have that same impact of the strange they did then.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I should've kept this poll open longer. Or perhaps it's that I regret having voted with my gut, not having actually listened to Timeless in years. I listened to Timeless so much in the mid-90s, that I kind of exhausted all the sense of wonder it had for me. I came to BST very slowly, a track here, a track there, over the course of many years. Eventually, I consumed it whole and gushed at how raw and enigmatic it seems.

I also recall Burial referring to it as a major influence around the time he was making Untrue (I think). The inspiration seems pretty clear, and adds a poignant layer to the legacy of BST.

Timeless has come to be so heavily associated with going to raves and driving up the coast, and doing all kinds of things in the 90s, that it's harder for me to listen to with fresh ears. And as nashwan touched on, Goldie's future celeb status also placed too many concrete associations in my brain when I listen to it.

I initially expected results like this, but after hearing so many spirited defenses of Timeless, expected this to be much closer - and wasn't actually sure which would come out on top.

Damn, thought I'd have the chance to sneak in and throw a vote Timeless' way, took way longer than I thought to dig up my ropey CD of BST. FWIW I think Timeless has regained a lot of mystique (or at least I've seen a lot more referencing of it late, inc. an installation playing "Mother" heh) - the whole new age-yness seems to vibe in w/a lot of art school kids/internet art/etc in the uh Lamp zone atm, lot of ~pristine~/dolphins/etc aesthetics going around.

welp

now this is happening

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdF5_6pYTbE

Listened to Timeless on the way to/from class last night. Still a mindfuck.

Cliche but It really needs to be listened to loud.

that's because it's mastered by dilinja and optical!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpMY6B1vzow

actually the optical thing is a lie

it was rob playford, not optical

though i feel like optical did some sick engineering work before he made his name for himself

the pre-dolphin song breakdown at 2:50 in universal love is the very definition of aquatic jungle

what engineering work did optical do pre "To Shape The Future"?

i'm talking out of my ass, probably

i think he did some ed rush and grooverider stuff

and dom & roland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L94u1h0Rnx8

groove called that track "more devastating than the borg"

optical two years before that track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrAqd98hnbw

the way the drums go crazay from 1:00 to 2:00 in the boymerang remix is just so fucking next level

and the bassline at 2:20 is just ... fucking sick

youtubes don't load for me at work - what's the d&r track more devastating than the borg?

For what it's worth, this thread has convinced me I should give Timeless another try. At the time I was so underwhelmed by all its new age cheesiness, especially compared to earlier, awesome Metalheads singles, that I haven't actually listened to it since the 1990s. I think these days I have a much higher tolerance for cheesiness than I had back then.

yeah i don't feel like either record loses at the expense of the other, mostly this thread has just made me wanna dig up more of the 90s stuff i've forgotten, also d'n'b 4ever

FWIW I think Timeless has regained a lot of mystique (or at least I've seen a lot more referencing of it late, inc. an installation playing "Mother" heh) - the whole new age-yness seems to vibe in w/a lot of art school kids/internet art/etc in the uh Lamp zone atm, lot of ~pristine~/dolphins/etc aesthetics going around.

― etc, Wednesday, 12 September 2012 02:14 (7 hours ago) Bookmark

idk if i'd have put it quite on the nose as this (not that you're wrong either mind) but i def agree timeless feels alive and like it still has a relevance compared to bst and indeed p much any of its dnb time capsule contemporaries

obv that is not a value judgement (although i like new things so for me it is)

Manchester store takes a side.

https://boomkat.com/products/timeless-25-year-anniversary-edition

(last paragraph of the product description is what I refer to btw.)

These are the VIPs and mixes on the third disc.

Timeless (Instrumental)
Kemistry (VIP Mix)
Angel (Grooverider Re-edit)
State Of Mind (VIP Mix)
Still Life (VIP Mix)(The Latino Dego In Me)
Saint Darkie
Inner City Life (4 Hero's Part 2 'Leave the planet mix')
[re:jazz] - Inner City Life
Sensual

tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimelesssssssssssssssssss