Recently Moonshine records released goldie.co.uk, a compilation of rising Drum and Bass composers thrown on wax and let spin by Goldie, the D&B guru himself.
The CD is laid out as one large 18-track set. Many of the songs have no real starting or ending point - they mostly all overlap, preserving a constant tempo of around 160 BPM throughout the whole CD.
This is a trademark of DJs and is used in dance halls as a method of having a sort of constant heartbeat throughout the harmonic structures included within different songs.
While this idea can be great when it is intended to take people on a "trip" by using different artists and songs as locations on this journey, it also detracts from each individual song.
The songs contained in this type of compilation do not exist as individual entities or do not posses a heartbeat of their own.
They function as constituent parts within a larger sweat brewed amalgam and as such, the songs leave no lasting impression.
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This wouldn't be the case if I were speaking about using more than one genre in this respect, but due to the very repetitive nature of Drum and Bass, it seems as if most of these songs are born into the servitude of their DJ master anyway.
Never once did I listen to this album and isolate a single track as being uniquely superior.
Except for the first track, every song carries a mood that is contingent upon what came before.
To truly take the music in, the preceding song must also be taken in and then we continue in a regress until we arrive at the first song.
This idea is a little frustrating because to really get into any of the songs within this album, the whole album must be listened to in its entirety.
In almost all of the songs on the CD, there is an emphasis on the four and the eight relative to the downbeat.
This gives the whole work an incessant driving hesitancy that sounds more like you are trying to evoke some cyber age version of Papa Legba than construct a healthy piece of music.
However, "health" in music was probably never the intention of these artists. This music is functional.
I have a hard time saying that this music is bad, for I don't think it ever really tried to be good, and the only accurate judgment I could ever make in this respect is that the music is indifferent to either.
With sole respect to the intentions of Goldie and the composers on goldie.co.uk, I really like this album.
If you are big on Drum and Bass, or just electronic dance music, I would recommend this album highly.
It has an intensity and passion within its limitations that is very noticeable and will surely drive you to hysterics, as if being possessed.
We all have those classic albums that will remained shrouded in goodness for all time, but after listening to goldie.co.uk as a complete work, from start to finish, this album will probably never achieve that status.
