Christian Jay "C. J." Bolland (born 18 June 1971,

Stockton-on-Tees Stockton-on-Tees, often simply referred to as Stockton, is a market town in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees in County Durham, England. It is on the northern banks of the River Tees, part of the Teesside built-up area. The town had an estimated ...

, England) is an English-Belgian

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

producer and

remix A remix (or reorchestration) is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, poem, or photograph can all be remixes. The o ...

er with British roots. Born in

, County Durham, Bolland's family moved to

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

in Flanders, Belgium, when he was three years old.Larkin, Colin (1999) ''The Virgin Encyclopedia of Dance Music'', Virgin Books, , p. 42 As a teenager, he was strongly influenced by the Belgian underground scene of new wave, electro and EBM embodied by artists such as Front 242, Neon Judgement and

the Klinik Klinik, (sometimes called The Klinik), is an industrial music band from Belgium, originally formed around 1982 by electro-synthpop practitioner Marc Verhaeghen, who is the only constant member. History Marc Verhaeghen originally formed Klinik ...

Producing, R&S Records signing

His first productions were aired on Belgium's ''Liaisons Dangereuses'' radio show, and Bolland was one of the first record producers to be signed to the fledgling Belgian techno record label R&S. His first release, "Do That Dance" in 1989, was followed by several more under different aliases such as 'Space Opera', 'The Project', 'Cee-Jay' and 'Pulse'. Bolland's first major success with the track "Horsepower" on 1991's ''Ravesignal III'' EP earned him industry attention and respect with wide airplay amongst European techno DJs. In 1992, the album ''The 4th Sign'', including the singles "Camargue" and "Nightbreed" saw him garner further acclaim and commercial success. Bolland's second album for R&S, ''Electronic Highway'', was released in 1995.

Internal Records

In late 1994, Bolland left R&S to sign a five album recording contract with Internal/

PolyGram PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a ...

. During this time, he became notable as the first artist to release an album in the '' DJ-Kicks'' series for the

independent label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small- to medium-sized enterprise, or SME. The labels and artists are often represented ...

Studio !K7 !K7 Music is a music company based in Berlin, Germany that focuses mostly on electronic music. The name is an abbreviation of the company's original Berlin address, Kaiserdamm 7 (it has since relocated, first to Heidestrasse 52, and currently he ...

, 1995's '' DJ-Kicks: C.J. Bolland''. His first studio album for PolyGram was 1996's ''The Analogue Theatre'' from which his greatest commercial success came with the single "Sugar Is Sweeter", hitting No. 1 on the United States

Hot Dance Club Play Dance Club Songs is a chart published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine in the United States. It is a national look over of club disc jockeys to determine the most popular songs being played in nightclubs across the country. It was launched as t ...

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can represent tabu ...

, and reaching No. 11 on the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

.CJ Bolland
Official Charts. Retrieved 9 February 2010 Further UK hits followed with "The Prophet" (#19) and "It Ain't Gonna Be Me" (#35). Bolland is also a prolific remixer with a long résumé, including work with Orbital,

Depeche Mode Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in Basildon, Essex, in 1980. The band currently consists of Dave Gahan (lead vocals and co-songwriting) and Martin Gore (keyboards, guitar, co-lead vocals and main songwriting). Depeche ...

Moby Richard Melville Hall (born September 11, 1965), known professionally as Moby, is an American musician, songwriter, singer, producer, and animal rights activist. He has sold 20 million records worldwide. AllMusic considers him to be "among the ...

the Prodigy The Prodigy are an English electronic dance music band formed in Braintree, Essex, in 1990 by producer, keyboard player and songwriter Liam Howlett. The original line-up also featured dancer and singer Keith Flint and dancer and occasional l ...

and

Tori Amos Tori Amos (born Myra Ellen Amos; August 22, 1963) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. She is a classically trained musician with a mezzo-soprano vocal range. Having already begun composing instrumental pieces on piano, Amos won a full ...

. His song "The Prophet", sampling

Willem Dafoe Willem James Dafoe (; born July 22, 1955) is an American actor. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Willem Dafoe, various accolades, including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, in addition to receiving nominations for ...

Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominatio ...

's 1990 film '' The Last Temptation of Christ'' was an underground

club Club may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Club'' (magazine) * Club, a '' Yie Ar Kung-Fu'' character * Clubs (suit), a suit of playing cards * Club music * "Club", by Kelsea Ballerini from the album ''kelsea'' Brands and enterprises ...

hit. The song "It Ain't Gonna Be Me" was featured in the soundtrack of film ''

Human Traffic ''Human Traffic'' is a 1999 British-Irish-Welsh independent coming of age comedy drama film written and directed by Justin Kerrigan. It is a cult film of the Cool Cymru era of arts in Wales. The film explores themes of coming of age, drug and ...

''. In 2000, Bolland released the song "Enter the Robot", a collaboration with Australian producer

Honeysmack David Haberfeld (born 1969, in Melbourne) is an Australian electronic dance music producer, performer, DJ and educator. Best known for his productions and live performances as Honeysmack, he is a proponent of acid house and techno music styles ...

, and in 2002 started his own record label, Mole Records. February 2004 saw the release of ''The Body Gave You Everything'', the debut album by

Magnus Magnus, meaning "Great" in Latin, was used as cognomen of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in the first century BC. The best-known use of the name during the Roman Empire is for the fourth-century Western Roman Emperor Magnus Maximus. The name gained wid ...

, a pop/

dance music Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded danc ...

collaborative project with

Tom Barman Thomas Andrew Barman (born 1 January 1972), is a Belgian musician and film director. Barman studied at the film school of St.-Lucas in Brussels, but did not finish his studies because he wished to pursue a career in music. In 1989, he began by ...

, founder and singer for the Belgian rock band,

dEUS ''Deus'' (, ) is the Latin word for "god" or "deity". Latin ''deus'' and ''dīvus'' ("divine") are in turn descended from Proto-Indo-European *'' deiwos'', "celestial" or "shining", from the same root as '' *Dyēus'', the reconstructed chief g ...

. In December 2006, Bolland released a solo album titled ''The 5th Sign'' with the Belgian online record label The Wack Attack Barrack, followed in October 2009 by ''500€ Cocktail'' on Wikkid Records.

Discography

Albums

* ''The 4th Sign'' (1992) * ''Electronic Highway'' (1995) * ''The Analogue Theatre'' (1996) - UK #43 * ''The 5th Sign'' (2005) * ''500€ Cocktail'' (2009)

Singles and EPs

* "The Ravesignal" (1990) * ''Ravesignal Vol. II'' (1990) * ''Ravesignal III'' (1991) * "Here We Go" / "Get Busy Time" (with The Project) (1991) * ''Camargue (The Remixes)'' (1993) * ''Live at Universe'' (1993) * "Neural Paradox" (1995) * "The Starship Connection" (1995) * "There Can Only Be One" (1995) * "Sugar Is Sweeter" (1996) - UK #11 * "The Prophet" / "Sugar Is Sweeter" (1996) * "Desolate" / "The Tingler" (1996) * "The Prophet" (1997) - UK #19 * "Sugar Is Sweeter" / "Blue Monday" (with Orgy) (1998) * "How Do I Deal" / "Sugar Is Sweeter" (with

Jennifer Love Hewitt Jennifer Love Hewitt (born February 21, 1979) is an American actress and singer. Hewitt began her career as a child actress and singer, appearing in national television commercials before joining the cast of the Disney Channel series ''Kids I ...

(1998) * "It Ain't Gonna Be Me" (1999) - UK #35 * "Dark Side" / Camargue" (with Amex) (2000) * "Inside Out" / "Cyrus" (with Psylocibin) (2000) * "See Saw" (2002) * "Prophet 1" / "The Prophet" (with

Paul Oakenfold Paul Mark Oakenfold (born 30 August 1963), formerly known mononymously as Oakenfold, is an English record producer, remixer and trance DJ. He has provided over 100 remixes for over 100 artists including U2, Moby, Madonna, Britney Spears, Mass ...

) (2002) * "The Digger" (2003) * "Riot" (2006) * ''Radar Remixes'' (with T99) (2011) * "Broken Showroom" (2012) * "Chicago" (2012) * ''Ban Me (Remixes)'' (2012) * "The Return" (2019)

References

External links

C. J. Bolland official website

C. J. Bolland
discography at

Discogs Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bolland, C. J. 1971 births Living people English record producers English electronic musicians English techno musicians English emigrants to Belgium Belgian house musicians Belgian dance musicians Electronic dance music DJs Musicians from Antwerp People from Stockton-on-Tees Remixers PolyGram artists Rhythm King artists