Nathan Evans' UK garage and club music column covers the latest songs, remixes, bootlegs, mixes and albums that capture his attention. This edition covers a selection of LPs, mixes both distinct and assorted, and a UK garage musical.

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Cover Image Credit: Alex Brenner

A Review of Bangers, the UK Garage Musical

Morbid curiosity. That’s why I went to see Bangers, dubbed “the UK garage musical” which ran at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston, London. Because the pitch is a recipe for disaster - I’m picturing a troupe of dancers wearing Moschino and Gucci with mics running down theatre wings trying to get you to participate and say “selecta!”. It has the potential to paint garage as a nostalgic rendez-vous for the middle-aged to reminisce on a mainstream slither of a sound and all its cliches. Tell me it’s not real - has it come to this?

Well, as it turns out, the play’s subtitle is a bit of a misnomer. Garage culture does play an integral part, but it’s only a section of what is tributed in this surprisingly intimate story. Black club music, especially British, signposted the emotions of a scene; Pa Salieu’s “My Family” painted the dark city streets while Roy Davis Jr and Peven Everett’s “Gabrielle” glided around a thoughtful scene in a bedroom, as did the mournful side of the Streets. But Bangers incorporates more than just the sound of UK club culture; it’s in locations from the Ministry of Sound where tensions flared to the night bus where thoughts and fights were had.

The story of Bangers revolves around a couple who start in separate places - Aria, who has recently broken up with her boyfriend and feels further away from her dream of singing than ever, and Clef, raised by a single mum and part of an MC duo who is having to choose between the chemistry between his musical partner and going to university.

The stage had just three actors, two who played a range of characters and the one who was the DJ, a narrator who controlled the music and, in turn, the story. The actors would sometimes come to her to tell them how they felt, and she would sometimes have to be the moderator in heated scenes.

Aria’s past bubbles to the surface at a hen night with her old friend Bex, which has a stunningly raw scene in which she gets engrossed on the dancefloor, whining up on a man and losing herself, before she realises the entire club is staring at her. It’s a bitter beatdown after one of the few moments where Aria finds real joy, and calls to mind how clubbing has become more self-conscious in an age where embarrassment could be a Twitter post away.

The moment spirals Aria into an argument with Bex outside the club, then a realisation that she has forgotten her dream of becoming a singer. She thinks about her old schoolteacher, and how he nurtured her talent until he kisses her after a lesson and immediately understands the repercussions (“tell no-one about this!” he shouts.) Meanwhile, Clef develops feelings for his rap sidekick, played by the woman playing Aria but certainly has a masculine demeanour - it could well be Tempa T in that snapback.

While spoiling the twist, the two characters’ respective struggles intertwine at the finale, but cannot neatly be resolved with a final scene. The last we see of Aria and Clef is the first steps towards resolving their dilemmas.

So how does this all come back to garage? There was plenty of MCing over garage and grime across the play, as rap battles often became the framework for arguments. The delivery was clearly of someone who studied series like Lord of the Mics, the only exception being a battle between a mother and son, which read a little cringe.

Bangers isn’t strictly a UK garage musical, and thank god for that. It’s 70 minutes that breeze by, and at the end, there was a little medley of garage classics which felt earned but so much so that it didn’t feel needed. The final point you’re left with is one the DJ says to the audience: “Music is a mirror”, but it cannot be the saviour to difficult situations.  We don’t know what decisions the character made next, but the play smashes any assumption that answers would lie in music. Nothing in life is neat; the play’s chapters were laid out as “tracks”, but only you know what the next one is, not your phone, not the record player, not the DJ.

I Made a Delinquent Greatest Hits Mix

Delinquent have recently teased that after years apart, the Niche bassline duo might be coming back together, which sparked a minor obsession in me over the past month or so. In 2008, they had a hit titled “My Destiny” which peaked in the charts the same week as another bassline classic: H “Two” O and Platnum’s “What’s It Gonna Be”, which landed all the way up at No. 2. As such, they are often seen as the bridesmaid that never became the bride. But look through their catalogue leading up to this and you’ll find musically fascinating and raucous breakdowns that often feel like Wookie has gone 8-bit. It’s all in this mix by yours truly, from their handful of EPs to their official remixes and edits as Delinquent and Likkleman - the very best of one of bassline’s greatest duos.

Mix of the Month: Dunman - Kindred Radio 09.07.24

There’s plenty talk about how club genre boundaries are more blurred than ever, but leave it to Bournemouth beatmaker Dunman to show it. He took a shift at Breaking Breaks’ takeover of London’s Kindred Radio, which also included Just Jane, Esc, Megan Wroe, Auramatic and Oldboy, and from the outset, Dunman asserts that his set will be the most varied of the lot. From Kindred’s suspended decks, he starts with Big Ang’s “Angel of Mine”, a contemplative bubble bath of organs, before switching pace with a four-to-the-floor transition into a donk remix of Bucketheads “The Bomb (These Sounds Fall Into My Mind)”.

Sugary and hyper turns dark as prog house synths wind up into gyrating dark garage bass with ease. The mix is joyously fast and loose, as transitions are made in the spur of the moment - he finds a track and throws it down seemingly on sight. He reaches out and grabs for caustic grime, grey noise-filled techno, angle-grinding dubstep and sidewinding hard house, not caring about their connections and allowing you, the listener, to make them in your head. In many ways, he reflects how UK club sounds are more intertwined than ever now - look at the recent output from labels like ec2a and Hardline, and how they have only grown by welcoming more rhythmic variety into their catalogue.

It’s not heady in the slightest. Dunman has room for pop edits, including 2step do-up of Control-era Janet Jackson with a tar black bass, and more than a healthy dosage of cheese with an edit of C+C Music Factory. The way that sultry, diva-guided piano garage corrodes into a phantasmagorical speed garage build-up shows how close together club sounds are now in the UK.

NOTION - FORWARDS

There were many candidates for dance record of the summer: Joy Orbison’s “Flight FM” was inescapable, as was German producer Diffrent’s speed garage heart-grabber “A Little Closer”, but NOTION’s “TV DREAMS” kept appearing too. One of the singles of the year for its simplicity, executed to perfection. The way the galloping synth feels on the verge of collapsing as it rises, but is then brought back into sharp focus, builds an incredible momentum. It’s the standout track on NOTION’s new mixtape FORWARDS.

NOTION’s production style feels incredibly polished, sitting a touch more house-leaning to salute’s hyper garage. Even when he goes rough, it feels spotless, like on the icy “Feel Like Me” or the speedy g mutation “STYLIN”, which sounds rough and under cover with overblown drums that lock the groove down. “LITTLE STEPS” has similarly complex, candy-coated melodies that you may find in a Kelbin or GOJII tune, and “THINK ABOUT U” and the whistle that slices through the top of the track somehow sounds both like an Ocarina and a bullet whizzing over the top of you, depending on your context.

Opener “GRAVITY” is the greatest statement of intent. Here, NOTION arranges warm sawtooths to sweep up bitter nostalgia, starting the mixtape on a striking tone. As the project progresses, the dial feels like it’s only halfway turned. FORWARDS explores many interesting sides to modern garage and other UK club sounds, but an even rougher, scuzzier sound would have made for something much more enthralling.

MPH - Shoot to Kill

Last year, I reviewed UK 4x4 maestro MPH’s short LP 132.0 FM, and while the material was prime MPH, it felt as though the party ended just as it started to get going. His first proper full-length Refraction doubles the track list and makes use of every square inch, providing a medley of searing bassline, ruminative house and airborne jungle. The pacing is well-nurtured, beginning with tranquil ripples of jazz chords before spiralling outwards from mindfulness into mindlessness.

Just when you think you’ve studied MPH’s moveset, he finds new routes of attack. The feeling of sheer horsepower on “North LDN” is enough to give you first-degree gurns, while “My Mind” mashes up torque-heavy breaks with a vocal that could be mistaken for Hannah Reid. MPH’s jazz influences are more slickly folded into Refraction, illuminating “Lights On” with a key section or cementing the mood with a scale-climbing solo on “Records”.

MPH’s “just-one-more” approach to song arrangement is what makes the early highlight, “Shoot to Kill”, so thrillingly vicious. Centred around a New Orleans hip-hop sample, its breakdown is his trademark kaleidoscopic shuffle with round bleeps hitting sour notes before being interrupted by pummeling synth. Coming back around in the second half, these elements get bent even more out of shape, as though the very instruments themselves are melting as MPH is playing them. Like many of his tracks, it rides danger like the barrel of a wave.

In the past few years, garage and specifically 4x4 bassline have become very accepted in big tent, warehouse club music spaces. Sammy Virji’s “Never Let You Go” has gotten more mileage than ever this summer despite being a seven-year old free download. With this in mind, Refraction is more than enough evidence that MPH can carry on the momentum that 4x4 bassline garage has caught.

Oh Annie Oh - Bye Hoe

London-based DJ Oh Annie Oh is releasing her debut EP this month, and the first taste, “Bye Hoe”, shows her messing with the in-betweens of genre. As if to physically whisk her rival away, the track is neatly fuses techno and garage into one drum pattern, setting the stage for a bass that typhoons like a Pariah track. The rest of the EP adds electro wallops and arid dembow into the mix.

Royal-T - Needed U EP

We’ve entered the next phase of the international garage phenomenon. We’ve seen many UK artists in the scene fly over to Japan for a tour, but undisputed veteran Royal-T has gone one step further and lent his name and production chops to young Tokyo-based label Spraybox - a dream co-sign.

T’s last big release was the there for you LP as part of TQD, and “Needed U” could have snuck onto that album as covertly as Sam Fisher. The track gleefully wraps itself up in organ bassline and speed garage, swinging back and forth just as quickly as the love-smitten vocal sample. I most appreciate the nod to the coolest video game of the PlayStation 2 era - SSX Tricky.

The original mix is just one section of the story - this is a song split six different ways. The Spraybox crew takes over, with Jacotanu picking out the jauntiness of the vocal sample with a piano, while Nizikawa’s remix matches its pendulum swing with added bassline gulps. The remix from Oblongar is the pick of the bunch, however, for its 2step breakdown that sputters the original’s Reese bass, squelching organs and key stabs in all manner of directions like a comically elaborate factory machine.

Needed U EP marks an important moment for the Japanese garage scene, but it’s far from the first time a UK artist has made club music exclusively for a Japanese entity - it’s something that goes all the way back to the 90s. That is something I’ll write about very soon, follow my Twitter or Instagram to get notified.

Frankie $ - Oldschool UK Garage Mix 2024

A compact Japanese apartment. A vast emporium of records sprawled across the room, its spines taking over the view like barcode-shaped ivy. An overhead cam of a dad hat working the decks. This is what will greet you in a Frankie $ video, enough to trigger Pavlovian responses to any garage fan. I wrote about YouTube mixes in the last NUKG Monthly, and Frankie $ is one of the ones to watch if you’re after dance music archaeology, with vinyl-only period mixes of UK garage, speed garage, tech house, hardcore and even progressive house.

His latest is back to his usual stomping grounds in garage house, pulling a lot of them up in tempo, almost to the end of the slider. Making use of a small number of EPs considering the almost 80-minute runtime, he’ll play a track from one side, take it off the plate and swap it over to the other side on the other plate, revealing a Stone Island slipmat - unmatched levels of ‘get the badge in’.

This mix from Frankie could be more accurately described as a Nice N Ripe mix - the streak lasts for the first 43 minutes. Sure, you’ll pick out plenty of Nice N Ripe label stickers from the Deep Trouble and FX sublabels as well as the famous globe, but it’s all in good hands. The way Frankie $ switches from one bassline to another as easily as someone playing the bass. The transition that happens 30 minutes in between two blue labels is incredible, as he keeps them both on the speakers, locked in arms for a full minute while an organ ripple provides the perfect emotional lead-out.

Making casual reverb edits along the way, he feeds off of sentiment-heavy cuts like Behind the Mask’s “Freedom Is Sweeter” (“let freedom reign!”), and Vinyl Movers’ “Nite Drive”, whose noodling keys somehow caress the feeling of adventure with no destination and the warm feeling of coming home. Jeremy Sylvester gets plenty of play, from Sly’s “Way Down (Bump & Wiggle Mix)” to the immortal “Give You Love (Real Love)” by Champagne Bubbler. Frankie $ ends fittingly with Production Team’s “If Dreams Should Come True”, which encapsulates the feeling of dozing off to sleep and feeling great about it. While there are a million and one mixes of this ilk, there’s a homely feel to watching Frankie’s, imbued with the warm hum of mixed vinyl.