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By any metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary phenomenon. It unfolded during a span of 12 months. At the beginning of 1989, they were merely a regional cause of excitement in Manchester, largely overlooked by the traditional channels for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The music press had hardly mentioned their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to pack even a smaller London venue such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had entered the charts at No 8 and their appearance was the big attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely conceivable state of affairs for most indie bands in the late 80s.

In retrospect, you can find numerous reasons why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, obviously attracting a far bigger and broader audience than typically showed enthusiasm for indie music at the time. They were distinguished by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning dance music scene – their confidently defiant demeanor and the skill of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly virtuosic in a scene of fuzzy thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way entirely unlike anything else in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an point that the tune of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were doing behind it really didn’t: you could move to it in a way that you could not to most of the tracks that featured on the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on music quite distinct from the standard indie band influences, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a huge admirer of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “great northern soul and funk”.

The fluidity of his performance was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled first record: it’s Mani who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection transitions from Motown stomp into free-flowing groove, his jumping lines that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

At times the ingredient wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song is not the singing or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy guitar work, or even the drum sample taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, driving bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the low-end melody.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses went wrong artistically it was because they were insufficiently funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was underwhelming, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit rigid”. He was a strong defender of their oft-dismissed follow-up record, Second Coming but thought its flaws might have been fixed by removing some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “returning to the rhythm”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s handful of highlights usually coincide with the instances when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its increasingly turgid songs, you can hear him metaphorically willing the band to increase the tempo. His playing on Tightrope is completely at odds with the listlessness of everything else that’s happening on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly attempting to add a some pep into what’s otherwise some unremarkable country-rock – not a style anyone would guess anyone was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire departed the band following Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a disastrous top-billed performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an remarkably energising impact on a band in a decline after the tepid response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, heavier and more fuzzy, but the groove that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – especially on the laid-back rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to push his bass work to the fore. His percussive, hypnotic low-end pattern is certainly the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, easily the best album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is superb.

Always an affable, clubbable figure – the writer John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the media was invariably punctured if Mani “let his guard down” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback show at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a customised bass that displayed the inscription “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s outrageously styled and constantly grinning axeman Dave Hill. Said reformation did not lead to anything beyond a lengthy succession of hugely lucrative concerts – two fresh singles put out by the reconstituted quartet served only to prove that whatever magic had existed in 1989 had turned out unattainable to rediscover nearly two decades later – and Mani discreetly declared his retirement in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on angling, which additionally provided “a great reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he thought he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly left a mark. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of ways. Oasis certainly took note of their swaggering attitude, while the 90s British music scene as a movement was shaped by a aim to transcend the usual commercial constraints of indie rock and reach a wider mainstream audience, as the Roses had achieved. But their clearest immediate influence was a sort of groove-based shift: following their initial success, you suddenly couldn’t move for indie bands who wanted to make their fans move. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, aren’t they?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”