Grooverider
Mysteries of Funk

When discussing an album or a song, we attempt to describe its artistic value with appropriate words. However, there is always something mysterious about music, an elusive element that no phrase seems capable of expressing fully.

This very aspect suits works that, while fitting within a certain genre, rewrite its coordinates or offer such a personal version that even the most attentive listener becomes disoriented. Among these is undoubtedly Mysteries of Funk, the debut of DJ and producer Raymond Bingham, better known as Grooverider.

Alongside his partner Fitzroy Heslop, aka Fabio, Bingham is unanimously recognized as one of the pioneers of drum and bass, thanks to his musical and radio activity carried out in the United Kingdom (especially as a resident DJ of the London club Heaven) between the late eighties and the following decade.

Apart from some remixes made for artists like Pressure Drop and Roni Size, Grooverider offers us a dark and enigmatic album, Mysteries of Funk indeed, produced in collaboration with Optical (by the way, do you know Wormhole by Ed Rush & Optical? No? Go and check it out immediately) and released in September 1998.

It is undoubtedly difficult to describe the compositional approach of Grooverider, who in his productions seamlessly juxtaposes electronic elements and live instrumentation, with sometimes disconcerting results. The thirteen tracks stand out for their cryptic and cerebral atmosphere, where the traditional alternation between "broken beat" and regular rhythms is accompanied by dissonances, edgy basslines, and strange grooves, spiced with echoes of jazz and psychedelia and evocative vocal parts (from this perspective Mysteries of Funk can be compared to an album like Coded Language by Krust, albeit less daunting and decidedly more accessible).

The introductory "Cybernetic Jazz" immediately makes things clear: great bass lines, heavy drums, and sounds that recall the interstellar journeys of Sun Ra, between reverberations, ambient interludes, and synths that project us directly to Saturn. The single "Rainbows of Colour" echoes nearly the same ingredients, but softens the sound with the addition of trumpets and funk guitars (also noteworthy is Roya Arab's eerie singing). Another track that hits the mark is "On the Double", based on some samples "stolen" from Isaac Hayes and perfectly harmonized among the rhythmic patterns (personally, I find some similarities with "Brown Paper Bag" by Roni Size: not a big issue).

In "Time & Space" Bingham moves away from drum and bass to explore nu-jazz territories (perhaps a bit outdated), with percussion, female voices, and wind instruments, while "Where's Jack the Ripper?" is one of the tracks where the presence of his partner Optical is most felt, a hard and menacing dark and bass that doesn't hold back sudden melodic openings (these aspects can also be found in the excellent "560'", full of brushed snares).

When freshness wanes, the level drops, but not by much: "C Funk" adds a scat highlighting the black soul of Grooverider, whereas the third part of "Imagination" lowers the bpm and immerses us in hypnotic hip-hop, with a piano loop reminiscent of a horror movie soundtrack.

A special mention goes to "Rivers of Congo", where Bingham manages to balance wind instruments and electronics, leading us gently through a damp rainforest, only to take us to the remote "Starbase 23" after crossing unknown galaxies and constellations.

At the end of the journey, we feel pleasantly disturbed, even though the spell risks breaking more than once due to the temporal distance from the album's release. No matter, because Mysteries of Funk retains nearly intact its charm and still represents a precious testimony of the golden age of drum and bass (and for those lucky enough to find it, there's also a deluxe edition with bonus tracks, remixes, and other interesting material).

In short, we are faced with a solid work, which, while not renouncing its roots (the black music of the Sixties and Seventies), places them in an icy, sometimes glacial context, devoid of that frenzy and warmth typical of Afro-American culture. Feeding a mystery that, almost twenty-five years later, cannot leave us completely indifferent.

DeReviewer Rating: 4.5