GLDN, Lorenzo Dorin, is an infamous figure to long-time followers of our blog and the EDM Industry. His scandal with the label he founded, Cell Recordings, remains to this day one of our most viewed posts. About once or twice a year since then, there will be a momentous new revelation about his transgressions and bad behavior. From getting kicked off his track on Revealed to his latest unprovoked social media rampage.
We are constantly amazed by the number of negative things he’s capable to display, in an autodestructive loop.
In hopefully our final piece on the topic, we’ll do a comprehensive recap of all of GLDN’s past transgressions in the hopes of serving as a record and a warning to other producers, labels, and individuals who might come in contact with him in the future.
CELL Recordings Exposed
In 2017, we exposed the serious problems behind the label that GLDN founded, CELL Recordings. At the time, it was one of the most influential Soundcloud labels but suffered from an owner filled with clout-chasing aspirations and greed. We demonstrated that plays were botted with real-time graphs on Soundcloud and Spotify, that their demo service was asking producers to pay $10 for high quality feedback from big names like Olly James and R3SPAWN (who denied involvement in the affair) and then delivering a copy-pasted generic reply. Big names that released music on the label, who we don’t mention only because they had the dignity to ask for our silence, were “convinced” with high quantities of money.
In short, GLDN has built its label by “buying” important names for releases, thus gaining a certain authority in the field, and was using it for scamming artists with fake feedback and, more importantly, promoting their music with a network consisting mostly of bots and fake accounts.
We have exposed this huge scam and received, in exchange, various threats from GLDN and his collaborators which luckily have now abandoned CELL Recordings, being aware of their mistakes. The community has helped us during the aftermath, and we have collected various proofs of GLDN’s scams after then.
About CELL, the label kept running for some months but was later abandoned. The community was infuriated with CELL and after our exposé, the brand was ruined.
Recently, we discovered that it has been bought by I A.M., and is currently undergoing a full overhaul and rebrand. It remains to be seen if the new owners can salvage whatever it can from the tortured brand.
Skyline: The Stolen song
About a year later, GLDN was once again subject to a scandal, this time regarding a release credited to him on Revealed Recordings, “Skyline.” On February 28th, The QR Network unveiled a web of underground dealings which boils down to GLDN getting a ghost production from Strike Nine who stole the files from AXYS. The release itself remained under GLDN’s name until AXYS convinced Revealed to change the title to “AXYS & PVLSE – Skyline” on all major platforms – an unprecedented move.
Details about the story are present in this article, but in short, you need to know that:
- AXYS has presented solid proofs about him being the author of the production
- GLDN didn’t provide any evidence about the payment, neither the original file, but declared that AXYS is a liar (with aggressive threats and disgusting insults)
- Revealed Recordings acknowledged the scam in a public statement after recrediting the work.
- This provides a public record that GLDN surrounds himself with shady individuals that share the same twisted morals as himself.
- In the fallout of this event, GLDN issued many homophobic and litigious threats against others in the comments section of a since-deleted instagram post. He also threatened many people involved in the making of the article.
Musical Freedom
After all these scandals, one could imagine that GLDN’s career was over. However, money is hard to silence.
We were astonished to discover that Musical Freedom, a sub-label under Spinnin’ Records, had signed the notorious GLDN alongside Promise Land, a famous Italian duo. We contacted Spinnin’ who declared that they weren’t aware of GLDN’s past and that it’s too late for stopping the release and Promise Land who refused to comment. We made an article about this embarrassing situation, the community, once again, got indignated, but the release is still here in Spinnin’ catalogue.
At the time, we suspected a large sum of money was transferred to someone in order to make this release possible, but around Christmas, we got our proof. GLDN showed screenshots of payments being made to a marketing agency associated with Promise Land to the sum of $12,000. So I suppose that’s the price of a Spinnin’ release for those of you wondering out there.
The Endgame
On Christmas Eve, Lorenzo went all out on social media, calling out KEVU for breaking a contract in a now-deleted post on his personal Facebook page. The details of the contract aren’t the main focus here – what’s important is that the contract seems to have been the straw that broke GLDN’s back.
In fact, he then went on a rampage on his Instagram stories, showing himself burning a contract for a collaboration with KSHMR, set up by the hands of one of their new A&R, Ilan Tenenbaum. GLDN declared that he was paying 6,000 euros a month to Tenenbaum in exchange for various benefits (including the granted victory of the “Alone” Remix Contest he participated). We contacted both Ilan and Dharma Worldwide about this serious issue, without receiving replies.
As previously mentioned, he also showed the paperwork behind his release on Musical Freedom, but in a horrible turn of events, Lorenzo decided to go full blast on the country of India with a slew of terrible racist stories and comments seemingly for the sole purpose of infuriating anyone wasting their time to view his vitriol.
It’s clear that this must be the end of his career. He burned all of the backchannels and under the table deals that propped up his hobby. Any person unfortunate enough to cross paths with him or Cell has abandoned and denounced his actions. Aside from the public outcries, there are multiple sources who tell stories of being scammed for Instagram verification services offered by GLDN. Producers who claim that GLDN promised a collaboration and promotion on Spotify for large sums of money and then blocking that producer on all social media services – thereby stealing their money.
Anyone who stands by GLDN must be condemned. There’s no denying that money flows behind the counter in order to prop up certain artists and DJs, but at least the majority of them mean no harm to anyone. They aren’t running scams on other hopeful talents or spewing hatred with their platform.
Keep GLDN out of EDM.
Let this be the last we ever hear of this unfortunate chapter.
What do you think?
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