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By every measure, the rise of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary phenomenon. It unfolded over the course of one year. At the start of 1989, they were just a local source of buzz in Manchester, largely ignored by the established outlets for alternative rock in Britain. John Peel wasn’t a fan. The music press had barely covered their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to fill even a smaller London venue such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had debuted on the charts at No 8 and their performance was the big draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable situation for the majority of indie bands in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can find numerous reasons why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, obviously attracting a far bigger and more diverse audience than usually showed enthusiasm for indie music at the time. They were distinguished by their appearance – which appeared to connect them more to the expanding dance music scene – their confidently defiant attitude and the skill of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a scene of distorted thrashing downstrokes.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section grooved in a way entirely unlike any other act in British alternative music at the time. There’s an argument that the melody of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were doing underneath it certainly did not: you could move to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to most of the songs that graced the turntables at the era’s indie discos. You somehow got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on sounds rather different to the standard alternative group influences, which was completely right: Mani was a huge fan of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great northern soul and funk”.

The fluidity of his performance was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album: it’s him who drives the point when I Am the Resurrection shifts from soulful beat into free-flowing funk, his jumping lines that add bounce of Waterfall.

Sometimes the ingredient wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song isn’t really the singing or Squire’s effect-laden playing, or even the drum sample taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, relentless bass. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses stumbled artistically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s underwhelming follow-up One Love was lackluster, he suggested, 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 believed its weaknesses could have been rectified by cutting some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced guitar and “returning to the groove”.

He likely had a valid argument. Second Coming’s handful of standout tracks often coincide with the moments when Mounfield was truly allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly sluggish songs, you can hear him figuratively urging the band to pick up the pace. His performance on Tightrope is totally contrary to the lethargy of all other elements that’s happening on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to inject a bit of pep into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable country-rock – not a style anyone would guess anyone was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His attempts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire left the band following Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses imploded completely after a catastrophic 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 slump after the tepid response to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became dubbier, weightier and increasingly distorted, but the swing that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – especially on the low-slung 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 highlight on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the best album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is superb.

Consistently an friendly, clubbable presence – the writer John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the press was invariably punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion show at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a customised bass that displayed the inscription “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s outrageously styled and constantly smiling guitarist Dave Hill. Said reformation did not lead to anything more than a long series of hugely lucrative concerts – a couple of fresh tracks released by the reconstituted quartet served only to prove that whatever magic had existed in 1989 had turned out unattainable to recapture nearly two decades on – and Mani quietly declared his departure from music in 2021. He’d made his money and was now focused on angling, which additionally offered “a great excuse to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d done enough: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were seminal in a variety of ways. Oasis undoubtedly observed their confident approach, while Britpop as a whole was shaped by a aim to break the standard commercial constraints of alternative music and attract a more general public, as the Roses had done. But their clearest immediate effect was a sort of rhythmic change: following their early success, you suddenly couldn’t move for indie bands who wanted to make their fans dance. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, right?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”