Like Goldie, Ron Size & Reprazent helped to shift jungle from its reggae-derived origins into a more soul-, jazz-, and hip-hop-based genre that came to be called drum and bass. New Forms is practically a textbook for that transition — check the jazzy bass sample that underlies the spare jungle breakbeat on “Brown Paper Bag,” the way an Amen break cuts through the atmospherics of “Matter of Fact,” and the subtly swinging and aptly titled “Jazz.” Old-school jungle is still present on this album, but you can hear it kind of gasping for air.

A classic Mercury Music Prize-winning album and near-perfect moment in UK club history, New Forms is the sound of a Britsh club genre hitting the mainstream in raw form, with not one compromise made to commercial considerations. Drum & bass is, obviously, all about the drums, and Size chose to base his future-space-jazz tracks around ultra-tough, supa-funky, rolling, relentless programmed drum breaks so good they almost function as hooks. He also included jazz elements, in particular a highly distinctive double bass sound, an instrument from an entirely different era, repurposed to become part of his high-speed tech-funk. There’s lots of space in this album, both in the feel of the futurist and abstract soundscapes that sit behind the beats but also in the arrangements themselves, the basslines often effortlessly carrying the tracks with minimal notes. Sparse, clean, tight; deadly.