Sweet Headache

UK Garage is back!

I don’t live in the UK, so maybe I am a little slow in noticing this trend, but UK Garage seems to be back again!

For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about: There used to be a musical trend in the late 90s that was known as “Speed Garage”, “UK Garage” or “2Step”. That style was mostly about mixing House, breakbeats and RnB. As a reminder, here is one of the most popular tracks from that time.

After a while, this got a little too cheesy and boring, and other styles took over. However, there seems to be a fresh movement of producers (mostly from the UK) who are picking up on the ideas from that era.

I wouldn’t yet call myself an expert on that style, but a lot of recent releases have caught my attention. This new wave usually goes under the names “Future Garage”, “UK Funky” or simply “UK Garage” (there are subtle differences behind those names, but I am ignoring these for now until I truly understand those differences).

So for now, here are a few current releases that I found and enjoyed.

If you want to dig deeper: There is a very nice article at Pitchfork that nicely sums up the current state of that style.