or better or worse, we here at Stylus, in all of our autocratic consumer-crit greed, are slaves to timeliness. A record over six months old is often discarded, deemed too old for publication, a relic in the internet age. That's why each week at Stylus, one writer takes a look at an album with the benefit of time. Whether it has been unjustly ignored, unfairly lauded, or misunderstood in some fundamental way, we aim with On Second Thought to provide a fresh look at albums that need it.

A good friend of mine introduced me to Funki Porcini at a time when I was first getting into electronic music. Porcini’s debut LP Hed Phone Sex was something of a stylistic masterpiece, significantly different from the typical trip-hop grooves that ruled the airwaves at the time. Lathered with the sexiest, slickest grooves available, it's topped by its apt and overt cover art. Although Porcini’s aims weren’t, his music was very subtle indeed. The album basically ushered in the period in time when downbeat music was an art form, and the Ninja-Tune label was its ruling body. Flowing between trippy, syrupy break beats and a loungey, laidback dub vibe the album didn’t need to rely on vocals to make an impact.

Love, Pussycats and Carwrecks sees Porcini at the top of his game. The album features stronger leanings towards drum’n’bass, glitch, and ambient vibes. Making for quite a schizophrenic listen, the album twists and turns in all ways possible, making for an enjoyable listen, never falling to the depths of mere "mellow music". As a talented saxophone player, Porcini knows how to spice up his recordings, adding thick layers of aggressive sax, and varying the instruments tempo to match the stretching and dissection that he inflicts on his breaks.

The album immediately envelops the listener with pulsing, organic synths, warm and fuzzy all over. Porcini’s saxophone gracefully washes in and out of the opener "Purrfect" – an apt title for such an epic masterpiece of lazy-afternoon bliss. Smooth, heavily distorted drums make an appearance adding to the heated mix. The song reaches an apex with a very audible cat’s purr, an original breakdown if ever there was one – and conjures up images that perfectly matches the song. As the song reaches its end, Porcini hints at some of the themes contained throughout the rest of the album – the drums take full form in a tight drum’n’bass format, accompanied by the swirling synths, sampled vocals and the occasional keyboard riff. "Groover" picks up the tempo, adding dollops of tape-delay to Porcini’s thick body of saxophone, and is the first track to feature the album’s signature skittery drum breaks. Liberal dashes of time stretching mid-song adds to the heady feeling the sax developed, warm but never claustrophobic.

"The Last Song" highlights time stretched drums – creating a dense, rhythmic bed for the saxophone to flow in and out of. This breaks down into some aggressive, echoey drums that revolve through several different elements of processing before the song reaches its 2nd-half wind-down. "Snip and Lick" takes the focus away from saxophone – being driven along by jazzy, slinky piano, some outstanding acoustic bass and an array of percussion instruments. "Carwreck" is the epitome of a great Porcini track, the song proceeds through a number of different time-signatures, as the song starts and ends, Porcini’s love for Time-stretched drums again evident. The saxophone attacks like a mid-song aneurysm – a double speed free-flow freak-out lasting all of 10 seconds, making way for a rolling, grooving bass to set the show for the rest of the song. The sampled lyric "Everything all right? No, everything all wrong" seems wry and apt in what could be described as a chaotic stew of drum’n’bass rhythms.

"The Afterlife" has things crashing back to a halt – a gracious, sickly sweet synth working revolving around more skittery beats and sleepy keyboard. Immediately after this break, however, "12 Points Off Your License" kicks things back in to high gear. It jumps around at a frantic rate of knots, trading "The Afterlife"’s gracious and smooth sounds with unapologetic, groovy madness, driven by a several layers of shuffling percussion and keyboards and a revolving bass line – with some perfectly placed stretched saxophone and drums.

"Venus" is like the type of cocktail party you imagine the original Jetsetters took part in. Walking bass, shuffling drums, keyboard that verges on xylophone and a rhythm that seems reflective of being drunk – speeding up and slowing down in a causal fashion. Live drums make an appearance with "Hyde Park" – probably the most standard formatted track on the album, and is actually pretty bland, save for a nice organ treatment mid-song and the generally suave flow of the bass.

"Theme Music For Nothing" however is a substantial return to form. Thick acoustic bass, an unusual oscillating synth and several layers of indulgent drum work make a tasty treat – especially when the song goes into rhythmic breakdown 2 minutes in. Porcini starts to experiment with multiple computer-aided effects on drums at once, keeping everything in line with that funky bass and a distinct stop start percussion noise. "I'm Such A Small Thing" morphs stretched, distorted vocals with tonally similar synth to great effect. Barely getting out of first gear and without a single drum beat, this sleepy number trades textual vocals with a minimal blend of bass and synths – absolutely lovely! The smothering sound of the ocean is enveloped with album closer "Going Down". The drum oscillates in and out in a under a layer of watery textual filtering creating a drowning impression appropriate for the name.

Successfully blending heavily modified drum’n’bass and ambient musical leanings with an obvious visual approach to textual development, the album plays like a schizophrenic trip. A perfect album for lazying about with a hang-over on a Sunday afternoon, or for snuggling up in bed with a loved one. An album that encompasses warmth and beauty, while developing its own distinct and often disjointed sound that verges on chaos.

In 1999 Porcini released the chaotic, up-tempo and sample-infused full-length The Empty Million-Dollar Pounds to the most uniformly positive reviews of his career at a time when the Ninja Tune style was losing favor with the hipster set. On July 29th 2002, Ninja Tune will release the long-delayed (it was announced to be released last year) double album opus Fast Asleep. Along with visual complements in the form of a DVD, Porcini and visual-artist Rupert Small (a.k.a. Team Alcohol) have put together over the past year – the album promises to be a stunner. Let's hope it lives up to the expectations Porcini has set for himself.