On the UK Garridge Tip

& A Bit Of Ye Olde Jungle

Found this choice UK garage mix today. It treads that fine line between classy, trashy, rootsy and poppy. The rhythms and sonic innovations are undeniable though. It's got classic faves Find The Path, It's a London Thing, RIP Groove etc. Maybe I haven't heard or don't remember half of these tunes which is refreshing. There are some revelations here like Don't Stop (Deeper Mix) from Ruff Driverz, Spend The Night (H-Mans Groove Dub) by Danny J Lewis and Jhelisa's very commercial Friendly Pressure (Midnight Mix), which I can only assume was a big hit in the UK. I think this gear stays really fresh because I wasn't into the scene at the time and only came to appreciate the music much later. It's not like 'ardcore/darkside/jungle where I've heard, you know, Mr Kirk's Nightmare, Bombscare, Finest Illusion, Terminator, Here Come The Drumz, Renegade Snares et al. 1000 times. Anyway this was a really spot on mix until the final three tunes which didn't seem to fit, starting with that Tori Amos track which was more like funky house. So I'd fade out the mix at around the 1 hour 12 minute mark.

Double 99's speed garridge gem RIP Groove from 1997 led me to the above mix. I'm pretty sure this is the original 6 min track.

DJ Gunshot's 1994 jungle tune Wheel 'N' Deal was sampled on RIP Groove was it not?

Wheel 'N' Deal put me in mind of this all time classic jungle Amen smasher Drum N' Bass Wise from Remarc. Wow this still sounds fucking remarkable (pun intended) and current and future... It's from bloody 1994. That's ages ago! I don't even wanna say the amount of years that is. Is 94 when the future died?

This whole sonic journey started here with Grant Nelson's classic Step 2 Me because this tune was posted at Energy Flash several hours ago.

*Some previous posts on UK Garridge:
Proto Dubstep, Speed Garage & Recreations.
UK Garridge With Simon Reynolds.
UK Garridge 101 Part 1.
UK Garridge 101 Part 2.
Uk Garridge 101 Part 3.

Breakstep Questions Answered

Is this strictly speed garage though or more like something on the peripheries of speed garage?

This is a question I asked on the weekend, on this here blog, in regards to these tunes- DJ Dee Kline's I Don't Smoke, Double 99's RIP Groove and Gant's Sound Bwoy Burial. As if in answer to this Reynolds posts a bunch of I Don't Smoke remixes and calls it a breakstep classic. I wonder if this is a sub genre named in hindsight? Was breakstep a micro-genre post 2-step pre Grime? Perhaps it ran parallel to 2-step in the nuum.  Anyway there you go.

What about this one Soundscape's Dubplate Culture? It's got a bit of everything hasn't it? The micro-genre geeks must have had a hard time with this one. Whatever it may be, it's a classic.

Proto-Dubstep, Speed Garage & Recreations

Funny how much I'm loving this Proto-Dubstep Mix 99-03 from J Rolla considering I was off the hardcore continuum come Speed Garage, 2 step & Grime. I didn't really make it back until the rowdier/wobblier side of dubstep showed up in trax from Skream, Rusko et al. Even then I was only into a handful of tracks compared to the hundreds of hardcore/jungle tunes that I loved (they would be into the thousands now since my rediscovery/reappraisal of rave a couple of years back). I mean I liked Burial's 2 records and Kode9 & Spaceape's Memories Of The Future but was that dubstep? I had Burial more aligned in my brain with Hauntological/90s Berlin zones and and the later with trip-hop territory.  Maybe I'm loving this mix because the material is so unfamiliar and perhaps I didn't need to get off the nuum around the tech-step to speed garage time. Especially because I've been diggin this tune (below) I Don't Smoke, which is soo good. It starts off like something from those nutty scallywags Position Normal doncha think?

Oh and this from 97. 

er...and this from 97 and I could go on..... Is this strictly speed garage though or more like something on the peripheries of speed garage? I don't know but I like it. There's even reenactments of this style today, check below Hodgson's One Spliff which is hard to resist as it's so damn addictive (No pun intended. Or would it be better to intend that pun?). This one via Energy Flash.

Anyway back to J Rolla from London, not to be confused with J-Rolla from NZ, who has a hyphen. Rolla's got a great bunch of mixes over at Mixcrate of 90s hardcore and jungle which are worth checkin out and er... some boring dubstep ones but you don't have to listen to those if you don't want to.