Recorded again in St Albans, the place he’d grown up, and launched in 1997, Modus Operandi initially bore the operating name Opposite Youngsters—a nod, in all probability, to Parkes’ fondness for switching up the course of his beats, flipping them from side to side so continuously that point gave the impression to stand nonetheless even because it stored hurtling ahead. However the identify Modus Operandi was once much more apropos. It got here from Michael Mann’s 1995 movie Warmth: When a sergeant asks Al Pacino’s personality, a sorrowful cop and not using a illusions about his fighters, what the criminals’ M.O. is, Pacino shoots again in his trademark rasp, “Their M.O. is they’re just right.”
The bone-dry overview epitomized Parkes’ want to end up his mettle in an intensely aggressive scene. That’s precisely what Modus Operandi is: a shot around the bow—an illustration of Parkes’ virtuoso ability, in addition to his resolution to take drum’n’bass, because the extra intricate iterations of the sound had an increasing number of come to be identified, into unexplored territory. If Goldie’s Undying, as many have famous over time, was once the drum’n’bass identical of Crimson Floyd’s space-rock epic, Modus Operandi would possibly as smartly had been a real travel to the darkish aspect of the moon, a voyage into the airless, lightless unknown.
Throughout 10 interrelated tracks that play out like actions of a collection, Modus Operandi plunges right into a netherworld of skulking beats, viscous synths, and violent foreboding. It’s awash in seasick frequencies and bathed within the sounds of steel—scraping claws, clattering shell casings, glinting metal chopping during the penumbra. Neither strictly a membership file nor, in any respect, a chillout soundtrack, it suggests a mortal face-off between rhythm and surroundings, every locked within the different’s dying grip.
In a milieu that prized dexterity, audacity, and velocity, the album’s opening monitor, “The Hidden Digicam,” is a head-fake. After a series of Rhodes keys that sounds virtually like a jazz participant’s interpretation of church bells, the beat in any case drops, however the tune can’t truly be known as drum’n’bass. There’s no hint of any canonical breakbeat within the shuffling snares and cottony flams, and the herky-jerky cadence has little in not unusual with the way in which jungle and drum’n’bass most often transfer. Most significantly, the pace is gradual—a pensive 126 beats in line with minute, in comparison to the 160-170 vary that had transform same old for the style.
The arena was once awash in chilled grooves in 1997, however “The Hidden Digicam” is hardly ever your standard downtempo. It bobs with a coiled depth that telegraphs unhealthy instability. The kick drum hits simply earlier than the downbeat, the snares dance across the backbeat, and all of the drums in between are both speeding the beat, as despite the fact that making up for misplaced time, or lagging in the back of. Unidentifiable noises, suggesting anguished dolphins, and grim sound results, like a handgun being cocked, stoke the apprehensive temper. But for all this, the vibe is comfortable, due to a spare, noirish standup bassline and synth pads that swirl just like the northern lighting. The drum trend performs out in two-bar words, however the keys and pads are drawn out in longer arcs that overlap at asymmetric periods. The ones overlapping words imply that your consideration is all the time following the track in parallel but contrasting paths—a trademark of Photek’s looping sleight-of-hand.
