Article Response: Garage 2000

I'd love to see a new Garage article from Tim tackling the directions that breakbeat has taken it. As I see it, the 4/2-step dynamic has shifted to the 2-step/breakbeat, except the breakbeat seems to be all over the place, and the good tracks are offset by real cruft like Dee Kline (whose remix of ODB's Got Your Money, along with "I Don't Smoke" absolutely ruins the first half of the "dark" disk of the Ministry Garage 2000 comp for me). Is there a new dynamic -- a way out? Or is this corner the end. Do I indeed need to keep my eye out for the next big thing?

Ironically I just read an article here by a former Aussie devotee lambasting garage for going too pop/r&b.

I'd be happy to write more on garage, but I just haven't come into contact with enough current material to be certain of my opinion - Napster's obviously no help anymore, and the clubs over here are still quite resistant to incorporating too much breakbeat stuff. Which leaves compilations, which requires money.

I think what's important to note is that the mixture of breakbeat and 2-step that you get on comps is to some extent quite artificial: that's a reflection of DJs catering to diverse markets, whereas at clubs so far as I know (and it certainly applies here) there's much more of a fundamental split between 2-step crowds and breakbeat crowds. Certainly most breakbeat artists operating now were breakbeat artists prior to garage, and they've realigned themselves because they want better sales. In fact I can't really think of a single 2-step producer who's "switched", which says something I think.

In fact I think there's something strangely comforting about the dogged refusal of so many artists to switch to breakbeats (as exemplified by the new rap style Reynolds talks about) as the slinky flow of the pre-set drums pretty much defines garage to me. My favourite breakbeat tracks are always those that ape typical 2-step programming as closely as possible.

Ultimately I don't think that garage is going to have another enormous creative upsurge any time soon, but nor do I think it's "past it" - that assesment is based in the assumption is that garage will follow jungle exactly. Reynolds, for example, strikes me as being a bit dogmatic when he states that the UK "hardcore" massive is overdue for another sharp paradigm shift. Yeah, that happened from jungle to speed garage, but it ignores the development from hardcore to ardkore to jungle or from speed to 2-step, which all strike me as a natural extention of what was already being used. The paradigm shift Reynolds speaks of has only happened once, which hardly seems to me like evidence of a pattern. There's no reason that garage couldn't go the way of house, for example.

Down there you at least have clubs which play this stuff. Poor me I'm stuck with expensive import comps. The second half of the Ministry comp, leaving aside the Dee Kline stuff I bitched about, is brilliant though. Especially the remix of rewind.

Which remix - the Wideboys one? Speaking of whom, they seem to be as good and as overplayed as ever over here. In fact I think I could construct an entire set of choice Wideboys moments.

That Ministry of Sound comp divided between light and dark looked highly annoying (I probably would have still got it but for having most of the tracks). The idea of wanting to separate the two strands of light and dark absolutely horrifies me. EZ' s more recent Pure Garage comps tend to veer off into breakbeat as well, but at least it's all mixed in with really genteel 2-step (eg "My Desire", "Coming Home", anything remixed by Club Asylum). Whereas if you listen to Zed Bias' "Sound Of The Pirates" comp, allegedly the prime "dark" compilation, and there's only a handful of breakbeat tracks out of twenty or so inclusions. I'm increasingly of the belief that if garage is going to go down a stylistic cul-de-sac, then the Zed Bias/El-B school of dark dub-derived 2-step beats is the least offensive direction it can take (especially because it leaves space for dancehall stuff).

As an added bonus, I'd now like to nominate my favourite ever garage compilations, in descending order of greatness:

1. Shanks and Bigfoot - Ayia Napa: The Album

2. Artful Dodger - Re-Rewind: Back By Public Demand

3. Zed Bias - The Sound Of The Pirates

4. DJ EZ - Pure Garage III

5. Artful Dodger - Rewind: The Sound of UK Garage

6. Timmi Magic - Pure Silk: The Third Dimension

Just sold back some textbooks and picked up Pure Garage IV and Ayia Napa, mixed by heartless crew. Narrowly passed up a Ministry "Real Garage" comp, on the grounds that the heartless comp seemed to ahve the tracks I wanted from that, as well as some you've been raving about (Cleptomaniacs, the MJ Cole mix of All Good) and in general, a slight bent towards remixed R&B. I just wish that that same DZ Zinc track didn't keep showing up everywhere. No thoughts yet. I'd probably swap the two Dodger comps, but otherwise your list is pretty spot on.

could i get an update on good garage compilations?