Cast your minds back to the summer of '98 when drum and bass albums felt woefully inadequate if they came in anything less than a six-piece vinyl wad and the taught, dark and heavy production sounds of Optical and Ed Rush were exerting an influence that would go on to stunt the genre's natural growth right up until the end of the Century.
In one corner stood the mighty Grooverider and his Prototype label, guardians of a music that seemed to be as violently bass heavy as it was possible for simple sonic frequencies to become (little did we know…). In the other was his old pal Fabio and his Creative Source label, defending the precarious values of melody against the endless battering of Trace, Optical, Boymerang and others with their industrial strength sonic hoovers. Grooverider, of course, won.
But, as is always the case, there's really far more to it than that as we're reminded by this timely bargain re-issue of the Rider's multiple vinyl beast of a '98 album project, 'Mysteries Of Funk'. The title alone tells us that much. Grooverider may never have been a whiz in the studio, that's why he employed Optical to help out in the writing and production of this album, but the 13 tracks on offer here do not simply assault the senses with bowel shuddering bass and lightening drum programming.
For one thing there's the single 'Rainbows Of Colour' featuring the vocals of Roya Arab, with gently plucked guitar elements, restrained choppy drums and that slightly nagging trumpet refrain - all d'n'b producers liked to drop a few jazz credentials into the mix back in those days - which proved that Optical and Grooverider could out-jazz Fabio when they felt like it. This sits in brilliant contrast to the tense, paranoid drum and bass ode to Suburban Knight's classic 'Art Of Stalking', 'Where's Jack The Ripper'.
'C Funk' is an exercise in restraint, Cleveland Watkiss drawing on his experience in Project 23 to weld scattered vocals to Grooverider and Optical's shimmering layers of tough beats. Things are even slowed down to a hip hop tempo on 'Imagination (Part 3)' as Sophie Barker whispers vocals like Martina on Tricky's 'Maxinquaye'.
The overriding sound of this album is inevitably the digital elasticity of Optical's production familiar from his '98 releases on labels like Metalheadz, Prototype, 31 Records and Virus, but Grooverider directs the whole thing with a more inclusive artistic vision than that displayed in any of Optical's solo work. Consequently, hindsight reveals 'Mysteries Of Funk' to be one of the more varied album projects that came out during the era of the drum and bass album, far superior to Optical and Ed Rush's oppressive and indulgent 'Wormhole' LP.
