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By every measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary thing. It unfolded over the course of one year. At the beginning of 1989, they were just a regional cause of excitement in Manchester, largely ignored by the traditional channels for indie music in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The music press had barely mentioned their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to pack even a more modest 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 draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely conceivable situation for most alternative groups in the end of the 1980s.

In hindsight, you can identify any number of causes why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously drawing in a much larger and more diverse audience than typically displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were distinguished by their look – which seemed to align them more to the expanding dance music scene – their confidently defiant attitude and the talent of the guitarist John Squire, openly masterful in a world of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the undeniable truth that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way completely unlike any other act in British alternative music at the time. There’s an point that the tune of Made of Stone bore a distinct resemblance to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were doing behind it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to most of the songs that featured on the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow felt that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on music quite distinct from the usual indie band set texts, which was completely correct: Mani was a massive admirer of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great Motown-inspired and groove music”.

The fluidity of his playing was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled first record: it’s Mani who propels the point when I Am the Resurrection shifts from soulful beat into loose-limbed groove, his octave-leaping riffs that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

Sometimes the ingredient was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song is not the singing or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy guitar work, or even the breakbeat borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, relentless bass. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the low-end melody.

Indeed, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses went wrong musically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was lackluster, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit stiff”. He was a staunch defender of their frequently criticized follow-up record, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses could have been rectified by cutting some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced guitar and “reverting to the rhythm”.

He likely had a point. Second Coming’s handful of standout tracks often coincide with the moments when Mounfield was really allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its increasingly sluggish songs, you can hear him figuratively urging the band to increase the tempo. His performance on Tightrope is totally at odds with the lethargy of everything else that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to add a some energy into what’s otherwise some unremarkable folk-rock – not a genre one suspects anyone was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His attempts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire left the band in the wake of Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a disastrous headlining performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an remarkably galvanising impact on a band in a slump after the tepid response to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became more echo-laden, heavier and more distorted, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – particularly on the low-slung funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to bring his bass work to the fore. His percussive, mesmerising bass line is very much the highlight on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, easily the best album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Always an friendly, clubbable presence – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the media was always punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a personalised bass that bore the legend “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s preposterously coiffured and permanently grinning guitarist Dave Hill. Said reunion did not lead to anything more than a long succession of extremely profitable gigs – two fresh tracks put out by the reconstituted quartet only demonstrated that any spark had been present in 1989 had proved 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 more concerned with fly-fishing, which additionally offered “a good excuse to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly left a mark. The Stone Roses were influential in a variety of ways. Oasis undoubtedly took note of their confident approach, while Britpop as a movement was shaped by a desire to break the usual commercial constraints of indie rock and reach a more mainstream audience, as the Roses had done. But their clearest immediate effect was a sort of rhythmic shift: following their early success, you abruptly couldn’t move for indie bands who aimed 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.”