[midlife 150] #133: grooverider “time & space”

#133 Time & Space by Grooverider (taken from Mysteries Of Funk, 1998)

Grooverider (born Raymond Bingham) remains one of the giants of drum & bass, not least because of his weekly radio show, with Fabio, on BBC Radio 1. While his reputation is primarily built on his career as a DJ, his modest output as a recording artist – this album and a few 12-inch releases under a variety of monikers – deserves more attention.

Mysteries Of Funk, co-produced with Optical, is probably the apotheosis of DnB designed for home, rather than club, consumption. A dark, progressive, cosmic sound permeates the whole album – interleaved with science fiction cues (Cybernetic Jazz) and psychedelic soul-jazz (the exquisite Rainbows Of Colour).

The Mysteries atmosphere is flawlessly captured in Time & Space – a track that creates its own hypnotic perpetual motion around Sophie Barker‘s weightless vocal and Andrew Blick’s speaking-in-tongues electric trumpet.

The urban cosmos, time-lapsed from beginning to end.

This review is part of close to 94 ‘s [midlife 150] series, which counts down favourite music 1970-2009.