Youth (musician)

Early career[edit]

Martin Glover was born on 27 December 1960 in Slough, at that point part of Buckinghamshire, England. He attended private boarding school Kingham Hill School in Oxfordshire, where he met Alex Paterson,^[1] who would become a roadie for Glover's band Killing Joke, and later founder of The Orb. Naming himself Youth after the roots reggae chanter Big Youth, in 1977 he joined punk rock band the Rage, who toured with the Adverts.^[2][3] Later he joined "4 Be 2", a band formed by John Lydon's brother Jimmy Lydon, and recorded the "One of the Lads" single with them.^[3][4]


Youth was the original bass player in Killing Joke but left the band in 1982 and soon after founded his own commercially-orientated dub reggae-funk fusion band Brilliant with future The KLF member Jimmy Cauty. The act recorded one album with producers Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) in 1985 before disbanding.^[5]


Explaining how SAW's creative process influenced both him and Cauty, Youth said, "We'd be co-writing with them, starting a new song and Pete Waterman would come in with a handful of New York import 12"s with him and he'd go to the record player and say, 'Right, that's the fuckin' bassline!' and then he'd play another record and go, 'That's the beat!'. Then he'd play another record, it's Cyndi Lauper, and he'd go, 'That's the melody!"^[5]


"It was that Picasso thing: don't borrow, steal it. I loved that. And that got me and Jimmy thinking, let's go further and sample it, and make the music from other people's records."^[5]


Youth also played bass on the Bollock Brothers' discomix 12", "The Slow Removal of Vincent van Gogh's Left Ear". Jimmy Lydon, brother of Sex Pistols John Lydon, was a member of the band.


In 1989, Youth and Alex Paterson started the WAU! Mr. Modo label.^[6] Their early releases were industrial techno dubs and heavy roots reggae sound system dubs from artists such as roots reggae singer Napthali, Manasseh, Bim Sherman and Jah Warrior.


Youth's connections with dub continued in the mid-1990s when he was asked by Adrian Sherwood to remix some of Bim Sherman's tracks for a reworking of the Miracle album. He also appeared on a Ted Parsons/NIC dub album, contributing a remix which opens with a sample from Glen Brown's "Version '78", a track originally released on the South East label.


In the early nineties, Youth formed techno and house music duo Blue Pearl together with American singer Durga McBroom. They scored a handful of hit singles including their blue vinyl debut "Naked in the Rain", which reached No. 4 in the UK Singles Chart and was also a No. 5 dance hit in the U.S. in 1990. It was followed by "Little Brother" and "(Can You) Feel the Passion". An album, Naked, was also released.


In 1994, Youth rejoined Killing Joke and their album Pandemonium was released on his Butterfly Recordings label, as was the 1996 follow-up, Democracy.


He is credited with founding the first psychedelic trance record label, Dragonfly Records, as well as the Liquid Sound Design and Kamaflage Records labels. He is well known in the psychedelic trance scene, collaborating with Simon Posford and Saul Davies as Celtic Cross, with Greg Hunter and Simon Posford as Dub Trees, and on the project Zodiac Youth. He has performed both full-on trance as well as chill-out DJ sets at several Return to the Source parties, and released the Ambient Meditations 3 mix album on their label in 2000. His Butterfly Studios were also home of the Return to the Source offices circa 1999–2002.