Breakstep

Last updated

Breakstep, or breakbeat garage, is a genre of music that evolved from the UK garage scene and influenced the emergence of dubstep. [1]

History

Breakstep evolved from the 2-step garage sound. Moving away from the more soulful elements of garage, it incorporated downtempo drum and bass style basslines, trading the shuffle of 2-step for a more straightforward breakbeat drum pattern. The breakthrough for this style came in 1999 from DJ Dee Kline's "I Don't Smoke" selling 15,000 units on Rat Records, until eventually being licensed to EastWest in 2000 and climbing to number 11 in the UK Singles Chart. Following this came DJ Zinc's "138 Trek", an experiment with drum and bass production at UK garage tempo (138 bpm). This instigated a dialog between breaks and garage producers, with Forward>> (a club night at Plastic People, London) playing host to Zed Bias and Oris Jay (a.k.a. Darqwan). They were mirrored in breaks by producers such as DJ Distance.

Related Research Articles

Drum and bass is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by fast breakbeats with heavy bass and sub-bass lines, samples, and synthesizers. The genre grew out of the UK's rave scene in the 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rave</span> Dance party

A rave is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance music scene when DJs played at illegal events in musical styles dominated by electronic dance music from a wide range of sub-genres, including techno, hardcore, house, and alternative dance. Occasionally live musicians have been known to perform at raves, in addition to other types of performance artists such as go-go dancers and fire dancers. The music is amplified with a large, powerful sound reinforcement system, typically with large subwoofers to produce a deep bass sound. The music is often accompanied by laser light shows, projected coloured images, visual effects and fog machines.

Breakbeat is a broad type of electronic music that tends to use drum breaks sampled from early recordings of funk, jazz, and R&B. Breakbeats have been used in styles such as hip hop, jungle, drum and bass, big beat, breakbeat hardcore, and UK garage styles.

Jungle is a genre of dance music that developed out of the UK rave scene and sound system culture in the 1990s. Emerging from breakbeat hardcore, the style is characterised by rapid breakbeats, heavily syncopated percussive loops, samples, and synthesised effects, combined with the deep basslines, melodies, and vocal samples found in dub, reggae and dancehall, as well as hip hop and funk. Many producers frequently sampled the "Amen break" or other breakbeats from funk and jazz recordings. Jungle was a direct precursor to the drum and bass genre which emerged in the mid-1990s.

Benjamin Pettit, better known as DJ Zinc, is a British DJ and record producer. Zinc first became known for 1995's "Super Sharp Shooter", a hip hop/jungle fusion, notably one of the pioneering jump-up anthems of its time. He went on to produce drum and bass, breakbeat and more recently UK garage and house.

Techstep is a dark subgenre of drum and bass that was created in the mid-1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hardstyle</span> Genre of electronic dance music

Hardstyle is an electronic dance genre that emerged in the late 1990s, with origins in the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. Hardstyle mixes influences from techno, new beat and hardcore.

Speed garage is a genre of electronic dance music, associated with the UK garage scene, of which it is regarded as one of its subgenres.

Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken beat, grime, and drum and bass. In the United Kingdom, the origins of the genre can be traced back to the growth of the Jamaican sound system party scene in the early 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dance music</span> Music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing

Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded dance music. While there exist attestations of the combination of dance and music in ancient times, the earliest Western dance music that we can still reproduce with a degree of certainty are old fashioned dances. In the Baroque period, the major dance styles were noble court dances. In the classical music era, the minuet was frequently used as a third movement, although in this context it would not accompany any dancing. The waltz also arose later in the classical era. Both remained part of the romantic music period, which also saw the rise of various other nationalistic dance forms like the barcarolle, mazurka, ecossaise, ballade and polonaise.

Drum and bass is an electronic music genre that originated in the UK rave scene having developed from breakbeat hardcore. The genre would go on to become one of the most popular genres of electronic dance music, becoming international and spawning multiple different derivatives and subgenres.

2-step garage, or simply 2-step, is a genre of electronic music and a subgenre of UK garage. One of the primary characteristics of the 2-step sound – the term being coined to describe "a general rubric for all kinds of jittery, irregular rhythms that don't conform to garage's traditional four-on-the-floor pulse" – is that the rhythm lacks the kick drum pattern found in many other styles of electronic music with a regular four-on-the-floor beat.

Bassline is a music genre related to UK garage that originated in Yorkshire and the Midlands in the early 2000s. Stylistically it comprises a four-to-the-floor rhythm normally at around 135–142 beats per minute and a strong emphasis on bass, similar to that of its precursor speed garage, with chopped up vocal samples and a pop music aesthetic.

Step 13 is a British live drum and bass/rock band from London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DJ Hatcha</span> British producer and DJ

Terry Leonard, better known as DJ Hatcha or simply Hatcha, is a South London producer and DJ notable for his seminal work in the musical genre dubstep. He is divorced from defected DJ Sam Divine. He had a regular show on the prominent pirate radio station Rinse FM in the early 2000s, before bringing dubstep to a wider audience with his regular show on mainstream radio station Kiss FM.

Electro house is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by heavy bass and a tempo around 130 beats per minute. The term has been used to describe the music of many DJ Mag Top 100 DJs, including Benny Benassi, Skrillex, Steve Aoki, and Deadmau5.

Deekline is a British producer and DJ of breakbeat, breakstep, drum and bass and garage music. He is the innovator of breakstep music which is bass-heavy, breakbeat-infused 2-step, first characterised in his 1999 hit "I Don't Smoke", which reached No. 11 on the UK charts. He is the owner of Rat Records, which has released material of such artists as DJ Fresh, Jack Beats, Stanton Warriors, Wiley, Skinny Man, Rennie Pilgrem, House Breakers and Freq Nasty. Deekline has also had notable collaborations with British electronic music producers Ed Solo and Wizard. In 2011, he opened up his online clothing store, Bass Boutique.

UK garage, abbreviated as UKG, is a genre of electronic dance music which originated in England in the early to mid-1990s. The genre was most clearly inspired by garage house, but also incorporates elements from dance-pop, R&B, and jungle. It is defined by percussive, shuffled rhythms with syncopated hi-hats, cymbals, and snares, and may include either 4/4 house kick patterns or more irregular "2-step" rhythms. Garage tracks also commonly feature 'chopped up' and time-stretched or pitch-shifted vocal samples complementing the underlying rhythmic structure at a tempo usually around 130 BPM.

References

  1. McDonnell, John (10 November 2008). "Scene and heard: Bring breakstep back". The Guardian. Long before dubstep became the popular fare of weed-addled students around the country, there was a genre that helped the transition from the sickly sweet sound of UK garage to the bass-drenched south London sound. That genre was breakbeat garage, now more popularly known as breakstep.