Many moons ago I talked about Disclosure and AlunaGeorge and the speed garage revival v1 which seemed to never really happen. Now I’m a bit 2 thousand and late about this, apparently Eliza Rose’s B.O.T.A. track with Interplanetary Criminal was a big hit over the summer – I dimly remember it, finding it a bit meh although the Lisa LIsa and Cult Jam sample is good, and skippety beats are always welcome. But thought it was like the Alunageorge a retro throwback blip.
To me, it sounds more Robin S New York Drag Ball House than proper speed garage?
Well, turns out, according to this MixMag article, it wasn’t. 90’s nostalgia is big anyway, and rising, and it seems the beats and styles are coming back – from white-washed jungle references in Sk*ll*x – to the rather more legit 4AM Kru to trance drops and fashion, and speed garage is no different. The article points out the drum and bass influence on speed garage, which I’d never thought of before – I just instantly ‘got’ speed garage, which given my love of grime, hiphop and jungle makes total sense now.
Whereas I feel dubstep which I loved greatly back then has had all the dub and black elements taken out, something that pisses me off about brostep and EDM as a whole. They took a lot of the syncopation and ruff stuff out, removed the black parts and whitened it for a rock audience. Plodding 4 by 4, no swung beats, no rolling beats, no grit, no jamaican influences, etc.
Most modern dubstep shouldn’t have that name, it’s not dub at all. Like what happened to rock and roll, but at least the structure of rock and roll didn’t mostly change, even if the subjects got less rude and less segregated.
A good example of this new breed is this Conducta track ‘Lessons’ and the low wub wub 90’s medley flip by Interplanetary Criminal, which feels like an update of Armand van Helden’s legendary Spin Spin Sugar.
And it seems they are quite mashup friendly – like this speed garage edit of Shaggy’s It Wasn’t Me by Leeds own Soul Mass Transit System, with the Omni Trio – Renegade Snares sample. There are a lot of Editz volumes on their Bandcamp, all good – although weirdly not this Shaggy version, just the original Renegade Snares re-rub.
And even though they are from Leeds, It’s totally A London Ting with this Flowdan vs Fugees banger:
And falling into a Bassline House shaped hole – a sort of high energy Robin S faster take on Speed Garage that was big in Sheffield (the Niche club) and the North West of UK. It reminds me of Donk somewhat, with more divas, a bit like Almighty and Happy Hardcore. In fact it seems the genre goes via several names – bassline, organ, niche. b-line or 4×4 – I remember the latter but it seemed a lot more ‘donk’ like to me back in the day.
I found one of those names – Jon Buccieri is now making speed garage as well:
Well worth checking out Big Ang as well for a related alternate history of speed garage morphing into bassline house post 2000 – a bit cheesy but a well needed feminine vocal take on a usually very male genre, with rave elements as well.
And finally – my favourite speed garage track, really a garage track that got an early speedy live remix, is Roy Davis Jr ft Peven Everett’s Gabriel. And here 8-Bit Society do an amazing live cover, with live trumpet.
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