Top 100 Jeremy Sylvester Tunes of All Time
Photo by Andrew Roberts Photography. Additional artwork by Two Dux Disco
Written By Nathan Evans
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Call him Sylvester, call him Club Asylum, Sly, Miles Fontaine, Champagne Bubbler, GI Sly, Groove Connektion, Big J, Deep Cover or G.O.D., but Jeremy Sylvester is the goddamn master. One of the most prolific heads in British club music history. His influence amongst garage is far and wide, even if it’s not immediately obvious - you can love a tune of his for years without realising it was his work all along under one of his over 60 aliases. His work in 1997 alone was beyond belief - 215 tracks and remixes, spread out over 62 discs in a single calendar year.
Breadth is what sets Sylvester apart, excelling in and setting the pace for garage house, speed garage and 2step as the genre evolved in the mid-90s to the early 2000s and beyond. Working with an Akai sampler and an MPC drum machine for many years, a bulk of his most legendary material was largely built from recycled parts in ways that show his masterful eye for arrangement. Plundering the sounds of his record collection, acapella tracks from pop 12-inches and drum loops from other club tracks or his own, he had an instinctive way of recognising what each track needed to flourish, whether it was balancing a bevvy of elements or being resourceful when the groove was laid thick.
Many of the labels Sylvester formerly released on were short sublabels under the umbrella of Nice ‘N’ Ripe - the renowned garage house label for which he spent years as an in-house producer - and later his own imprint, Urban Dubz. In this list, you’ll find several sweet spots in his discography, but there are some entries from 2024, showing his touch is not lost. From wax to WAVs, these are his 100 greatest tracks.
Note: As this is a garage column, we’re skipping over his early jungle material. Sorry, no Dubtronix here! If you’d like to read more about his Dubtronix years, read my piece for Resident Advisor about his contributions to the original Tekken soundtrack.
Below is a Buy Music Club playlist for those who wish to buy the music in this list that is available on Bandcamp, as well as a full YouTube playlist.
100. 24/7 - Guest List
Starting off with a personal favourite, “Guest List” is a brooding deep house one with gliding synths that have a bit of trademark acidity to them, and a bassline so low down it’s practically horizontal. When the beat slams shut, a scene emerges outside the club, where a woman is becoming agitated that she cannot get in, imploring that she is on the guest list. An utter diva turns around and proclaims, “Miss thing, there is no guest list tonoiiiiight!” A fantastic one to spin out in the opening hour of your club night.
99. Strickly Dubz - Rush
Part of his fabled 1997 series of EPs with a Hollywood blockbuster presentation to them, “Rush” comes from Strickly Dubz III: Return of Suarez. “Rush” enters into its main suite with liquid synth pads swiped from an old St Etienne refix by Masters At Work, before breaking it down with a two-note stab that evolves into galloping combos that slide across the track like an extra-long snowboard.
98. Club Asylum - Just a Groove
This comes from the era of Club Asylum that takes place after the chart-cracking pop and R&B remixes, when Paul Emanuel left to make it a solo Sylvester project, which he shifted into a 4x4 garage style inspired heavily by Todd Edwards. As garage morphed into dubstep, this would come to be the new evolution of the “purist” garage sound in the mid-2000s, with artists like Duncan Powell, Artifact and more sheening up Edwards’ choppy gospel.
So casually does Sylvester title this one, “Just a Groove” is like Discovery-era Daft Punk with its kiddish, filtered synths spinning a cute tune.
97. Miles Fontaine - So Fly (Steppers Mix)
While the Suicide Dog Mix on the other side has more bark, the coolness of “So Fly (Steppers Mix)” is more striking, as its bassline doesn’t even come in on the first bar but still catches up to the layed-out descent. The release this comes from was the first ever on Sylvester’s Urban Dubz imprint, which is his main label to this day.
96. SlyPaul - Crazy Dub
Released in 1997, “Crazy Dub” gives an insight into the passing-around of ideas that Sylvester and the garage scene at large were doing. The sort of vocal build-up on this track - where the vocals are stretched from words into their individual letters - has become so associated with speed garage today that it's interesting to hear it on a snare-heavy garage house track. The blinking synths and glossolalic vocal chops are right in the middle of the Goldilocks scale.
95. Deep Cover - Downtown (Mix 1)
The Essex front two make a teasing stepper with a bass that swells briefly before disappearing back into the shadows.
94. Deep Cover - Remember
93. The Rhythm Construction Co. - The Feeling
One of a few aliases that Sylvester inherited when he entered the revolving door of Nice N Ripe as co-founder Grant Nelson left, The Rhythm Construction Co. was sporadic but came with hefty body-movers such as “The Feeling”. The chant of “he!” makes it one you want to physically lean into, and the vocoder-like vocals that phase into a synth are a wonderful detail.
92. Playaz - Superfly (Supa Dupa Mix)
A one-time alias that produced this bumpy bootleg of Missy Elliott’s debut single, Playaz chops and loops the chorus line (“I can’t stand the rain”) to transform it into some sort of Missy motor. The way he uses her “vroom” ad-lib to cross into the drop is endlessly fun.
91. High Society - Feel The Love (Club Asylum Skankin’ Garage Mix)
An early Club Asylum track, this remix is closer to the galloping, syncopated synth groove which he perfected with tracks like this and Sly’s “Right N Wrong”. The drums are chunkier here than you’d find on the lean, fidgety 2step Club Asylum tracks that broke into the mainstream. Not to compare this to death, as this soul-rich do-up of a long-forgotten house track makes the calls to “let the light in” feel like gospel.
90. Big J - Nice n Smooth
When Sylvester titles a track after a feeling, he always delivers. In perhaps a contradictory observation, the Michael Jackson-like vocal twitches, (“Ho! Yeah!”) are what give this one its flavour.
89. G.O.D. - Untitled A1 (Limited Two)
Another alias inherited from Grant Nelson, G.O.D. (Guaranteed Overnight Delivery) was the moniker of many of Sly’s murkiest dubplates. This goes especially for the Limited series, which, while the stuff of legend, is all untitled tracks which sometimes were given an official release or met their fate on the wax they were pressed on the first time round. As such, online copies are often some of the most scratchy and poor-quality sounding releases you can nab, but in many ways, it adds context to the time period, like watching a film with a VHS glow.
A wicked two-parter, “Untitled A1” from Limited Two can be picked out for its industrial construction knocks that hit lazily near the beat to add an extra flair of groove, and the spare gap is filled with a quick “You’ve Got the Love” vocal line. But then, the female vocalist opens her arms wide to proclaim “such a feeling!”, welcoming a classy but slightly tipsy three-note piano walk.
88. Sly - Get With You
87. Freak Da Funk - Kina Funky
The vocal sample on Freak Da Funk’s “Kina Funky” is delicious, slowing down a raspy man yelling “FUUUUUnky” at the top of his lungs amidst a rolling drum clatter that nods to the jungle breaks Jeremy started out making. The caustic bass here does a simple routine - stepping up, doing a nice little twirl and clambering back down. Being bashed about by the drums as it makes its way through gives it that action - that funk, if you will.
86. Jeremy Sylvester - I’ll Give You Love
Love the switch-up in the midsection, with its blue-tinted keys that double back.
85. Freek Da Funk - Come Together
Yes, the Freek Da Funk alias does have two spellings. “Come Together” appears on the third and final EP, and conjures an atmosphere that feels like the dark underbelly of new age music’s utopian tones, before launching into spliced-up 2step with sharply-bladed keys, tight piano flecks and bandy bass licks. There’s a mystery hidden in this one.
84. Twyce As Nyce - Why (Dred Dub Mix)
Twyce As Nyce is one of many collaboration projects with fellow Nice n Ripe producer Paul Benjamin, who Jeremy said was his most significant creative partnership. “The stuff we were doing as Dub Syndicate was… we gelled really well,” he said to me. “We were just sparking off ideas for where we were gonna take an acapella from, sourcing sounds.” That energy courses through the Dred Dub Mix of “Why”, setting a hurried tempo, chucking on bratty female vocals that are chopped up frantically and sewing it up with an utter tearer of a bassline throughout the tune.
83. Funkaholics - Let’s Get It On
Funkaholics is maybe Sylvester’s most underrated alias, and “Let’s Get It On” is the first of several entries on this list. The memory-permeating vocal sample “let’s get it onnnn and have a good time” has a nice, long hang time, landing on a boxing glove bounce and toppling bass.
82. Sylvester - L.A. Climax
The opener to his disco-inspired 1997 Spring Sampler EP, “L.A. Climax” has an early speed garage structure with an extended breakdown, allowing the double-layered bassline disco bassline to dig into your pours. It’s meaner than a school bully kicking sandcastles on the beach. Meaner than a prison warden. Meaner than Brock Lesnar in a title match. It’s mean as fuck.
81. The M.F. Project - 9-5
Known as the M.F. Project here, Miles Fontaine is one of Sylvester’s fondest and most widely-used aliases, labelled on everything from Chicago-indebted house to speed garage. Stored on the only release for Rump Records, “9-5” is a speedy g whistler with cosmic synths and an atonal bassline that has the raw quality of an aux signal that’s half-plugged in - electrifying to the touch (“Don’t want nobody else-else-else”).
80. Miles Fontaine - Keep On
Released on Hanky Panky Records, “Keep On” uses a trademark of Sylvester’s - a matte, pointillistic bass that comes tantalisingly close to the ear and is used for short and affecting basslines. With a triplet vocal loop cutting through the swing, its crashing four-count cymbals herald a heater.
79. Jeremy Sylvester - Flashback
From his EP for Shall Not Fade last year, “Flashback” smacks hard and massages with its deep house chords in equal measure. I swear it uses the same sample as Ice Spice’s “Deli”, which means there is now a single degree of separation between one of UK garage’s greatest producers and New York’s body-flexing Tweety Pie-looking drill star.
78. Question 4 You - Single
A bootleg made with Paul Benjamin, the cabaret singer on “Single” curls and twirls around an ever-reforming organ-like key with her voice (“single-minded people always find a way”). It all comes together in the post-drop breakdown where the vocals are chopped up double-time like a Sunship track.
77. Miles Fontaine - Miles Groove
Another from the sole Hanky Panky Records EP, “Miles Groove” is a speed garage tearer with conga drums á la Masters At Work. It’s the atmosphere that strikes attention first though, sounding like a blacksmith sharpening a sword, with the bass later on almost mimicking its menace with a fierce descending and ascending routine.
76. Club Asylum - Do You Wanna? (Track Three)
“Music and sex go together like hand and glove”, goes the vocals on “Do You Wanna?”, and this 1998 untitled track practices what it preaches. This is from the early days of Club Asylum (before the crossover pop/R&B remixes) where they would go to record shops and create bootys from the acapellas of recent R&B hits, taking the iconic vocoder hook from a famous tune from the previous year here.
75. Groove Committee - Don’t Wanna Stop
On Sylvester’s sole release as Groove Committee, “Don’t Wanna Stop” advises the dancefloor into quick motions with a fat bass escalation, a jazzy chop of a long chord and a short jungle of drums. There’s something quite Chicago and French about this track, reaching towards house music that leaves in the background sample noise that, through its cyclical chops, becomes stripped of context and starts to sound like it lies in an alien soirée in purgatory.
74. Sly - Got Dat Feelin
From 1995, “Got Dat Feelin” possesses a rewarding arrangement that builds one element at a time until it cuts to footloose drums and a bassline that arcs like a rainbow. Topped by a vocal that says the title with a characteristic lurch, it cuts back to the vocal section the same way until the two are combined.
73. The Rhythm Construction Co. - Deeper London
A norty speed garage one from mainline Nice ‘N’ Ripe, “Deeper London” has one of the more patient intros in his catalogue, really letting the foggy, glowing synths and ragga vocals seep in lay down a foundation of foreboding treachery that calls to mind certain dubstep tracks. On the other, more energetic side of the drop, the bass creeps up from below and hits a flashing jingle right at the end of the loop.
72. Rahsaan Patterson - Stop By (Sly & Poolio's Nice 'n' Ripe Club Mix)
Now this is a remix where the source material gifts its remixers. Sly & Poolio (who would later become Club Asylum) use the ascending vocal harmonies of Rahsaan Patterson’s original and speed up his vocals to create a crinkly texture in his voice, laying just underneath cool deep house synths.
71. Jeremy Sylvester - Slam
A rippling love song turned rotten in an instant, “Slam” is half the 1997 Slam Down EP’s namesake and a corker of a bassline. It has hints of that pointillistic bass seen on #80, but it’s the build that gets us there - “here comes the SLAM!” goes the vocals at the noisy, windy peak.
70. 24/7 - Vicious
“You! Are! So! Vi-cious!” exclaims the vocalist, but the track belies its title - it’s more head-swaying and mellifluous, not fully unfurling until the tandem synth and organ ascent 90 seconds in.
69. Club Asylum - Taking Me Over
A slice of the post-2step Club Asylum after the champagne bubble burst, “Taking Me Over” is a disco-tinged bit of 4x4 Todd-garage. Love how it takes you to a radio-filtered play of the sample chop before cranking the saturation back in, letting the rubbery IDM funk bassline fly off the handle.
68. Restless Natives - I Wanna Know (Club Asylum Remix)
67. Next Phase – My Desire (Club Asylum Full Vocal)
Almost a midpoint between 90s Asylum and pop remix Asylum, “My Desire” ballasts a massive house thump that makes the walls feel like they’re closing in with a dash of Korg and a vocal ode to devotion that shoots for Stevie Wonder’s “As” in its holiness. A 1999 release on house-centric label Azuli, the best single second is when the tune drops and the bassline is first to come in, before sending everything back in one delayed rush.
66. Sly & Poolio - Trust Me (2 Step Shank Mix)
From the Asylum Seekers EP, “Trust Me” saves its true power until about halfway through, where a key change triggers a mashup between boyband R&B and old-school funk with the sort of charisma only found in the 90s.
65. Big J - Don’t Run Away (Unreleased Mix)
A pacey 4x4 one on the Big J alias, there’s a desperation in the vocal sample that syncs with the chasing feeling of the track (“I thought your love was here today”). “Don’t Run Away” is labelled the “unreleased mix” despite literally being the only version of the track to see the light of day.
64. Jeremy Sylvester & Paul Benjamin - Untitled (Lift Your Hands) [Illegal Immigrant B1]
This untitled booty comes from the Illegal Immigrant EP, which sounds like a name which carries political weight, but when I interviewed Sylvester, he told me, “we used to come up with some crazy, quirky names for a laugh. There was no reason meaning, we just thought it was cool.” Made with Paul Benjamin, they sample the glass chimes from MK’s “Burning”, italicising them with a choppier swing and a brilliant vocal sample that coalesces with a background vocal run right on the tip of the build.
63. Jeremy Sylvester - In the Morning
A bright, airy track that feels like a Windows XP background put to sound, “In the Morning” sets the tone with the playful chords of crate-dug library music, synths that beam through like god rays and low-registers moans right next to escalating vocal runs for a feeling of sudden illumination. It’s amazing how Nice ‘N’ Ripe this sounds despite being made two decades on. Perhaps with more dub sirens now, as is almost required on Shall Not Fade.
62. Global Rhythm - I Just Wanna Dance (Dub Mix)
A one-time alias of Sly and Francis James, if you’ve ever wanted a fusion of Sylvester’s squelchiest, bassiest 2step with the autotune-sweetened R&B vocals that defined the Club Asylum years, this is it.
61. Miles Fontaine - Tumbling
A snappy, choppy one that struts with force like his Sly material. The bass on “Tumbling” imitates its title with such a distinct motion, you can practically envision it lowering shoulder by shoulder to the command of the Southern belle on mic duties (“Everythang is tumbling down”). “Tumbling” is also a landmark track for Sylvester’s independence, being the first on Sylvester’s own label, Urban Dubz.
60. Miles Fontaine - Do It Baby
Another Miles Fontaine number, “Do It Baby” sees him toying with a gurgling rubberband texture on the acid synths, which turns into a prancing piano lead with the same peppy half-step. It calls to mind the Paul Johnson (as Traxmen) track, “Playing with a Rubberband” but with less head-fucked spiralling and more piano.
59. Dionne Rakeem - Sweeter Than Wine (Asylum Vocal Mix)
Rakeem’s original is hard to find because of the huge shadow this remix casts over it, but “Sweeter Than Wine” could have been a garage-inflected deep cut on a later-era Michael or Janet Jackson album. If anything, Club Asylum’s mix enhances that stance, slicing up Pacman’s electronics and crossing it with sultry harp flourishes that catch distant echoes of The Velvet Rope.
58. Deep Cover - Joy
It’s infatuating to hear how Sylvester samples the four-bar build-up from one of the best soul tracks of the 80s (if you know you know), used in a similar way to the original but cut up lightly to translate it into garage. He filters the vocal chops here like Motorbass would to give it a heady depth, adding plucked strings that were predictive of the mainstream 2step that would take over pop just a few years later (see the previous entry for evidence).
57. Romina Johnson - Into You (Club Asylum Mix)
56. Ambassadors of Sting - Thought You Could Take It [a.k.a. Alright]
This EP was a victim of the beef between Nice ‘N’ Ripe’s founder Grant Nelson and financial backer George Powell. Grant left the label acrimoniously due to royalty payment issues, and Powell, in a WWE-coded move, gave the EP its alias to diss Nelson’s Ambassadors of Swing project. Take a look at the tracklist, issuing fighting words (“So You Think Your Big?”, “Thought You Could Take It”), and the centre label message which reads, “Just think one day you might not Rise ‘N’ Shine but we will just get Nicer ‘N’ Riper!”, in a morbid reference to Nelson’s parody label Rise ‘N’ Shine. Where Nice ‘n’ Ripe once used their labelling to make-believe they were a New York dance label, now Powell was using them to ridicule and take potshots at Nelson’s new offshoot label.
It’s a shame because the material is great, such as this one, with its intoxicating vocal booms (“it’s gonna BE alright”). In an interview with NME, Sylvester said, “I realised that there was a bit of a thing between them, but me and the other in-house producers just tried to mind our business.”
55. Sly - Sexy Girl
A deep blue introduction to Sly’s tight, high-BPM stuff which sports an almost ghettotech kick, “Sexy Girl” has one of his signature sounds - a distinct click that sounds like it comes from a pinball machine, skipping across the subbass like a lakeside stone. From the beginning and after every drop, the track continually builds up element by element, hanging them on a consistent house string note. As time goes on, the vocal sample that starts off as “gotta have her” shakes into a phrase that resembles “forever”.
54. Deep Cover - Love Take Over (Playaz Mix)
An absolute monster speed garage tune very uncharacteristic of Deep Cover, the electronics in the downtime here flash and ripple like the TARDIS console. The best part is the little wobble at the end of the bass loop in the drop, a Princian fleck that, combined with the build, connects the alien shapes Prince took his funk to actual sci-fi.
53. Sly & Poolio - Put Your Hands Together
Another Sylvester and Benjamin collab from the spiteful Sting City imprint, “Put Your Hands Together”’s 4x4 drums hit with a satisfying weight that dissipates immediately, as though it’s using all its force at once. The jaunting bass and reversed chords mesh together like a well-oiled machine, and the little guitar flicks in the mid-portion are an unexpected touch from the idea box of Todd Edwards.
52. Jeremy Sylvester - Mood Swings
From the Chunky Beats EP, “Mood Swings is suitably slower and housier, with languid chords that sprout up to meet tuneful hits of string. It perfectly frames the trilling voice (“Amorrrrrrre”) which is spoken like a voice in a daydream, before it all gets taken over by the climaxing low-end. That’s a trait of Sylvester, how he introduces a band of elements before sniping them to accommodate the full weight of a bassline.
51. Strickly Dubz - Always On My Mind (Nice 'N' Deep Dub)
A rough ‘n’ ready cut from one of his famous aliases, the title is spoken in an infectiously twitchy way. The bar starts with “Always…” and waits nearly three bars to finish the title with a clip that catches a tiny portion of the previous line. The bassline does a cheeky pirouette similar to that on the #54 entry, and in a nod to his house roots, the second half of the breakdown adds a dangling string to punctuate the feeling.
50. G.O.D. - Kissing Game (Jeremy Sylvester’s Dub)
The original “Kissing Game” was produced by Mike Millrain - who shared the G.O.D. moniker with Jeremy - but Sly’s remix threads the needle between original Van Helden-style speedy g and French house, specifically in their long, filtered breakdowns. If it wasn’t on Nice ‘N’ Ripe, this would have made it onto Roule or Crydamoure, but where French house normally made a loop of four bars, this only has two. However, the way he chokes the midrange out of the disco sample is entrancing enough to warrant six minutes. It’s the Parisian way of creating bursts of the best bit of a sample - a rollercoaster with none of the brakes, an action film without trite dialogue. I’m going to stop before it turns into an Alanis Morisette song.
49. Jeremy Sylvester - It’s You I Want
48. Deep Cover - Do You Like That?
Peppered with the cheeky hits of horn that would become a regular characteristic of his work during this era, the strutting rhythm on “Do You Like That?”, blanketed by watery keys and erotic whispers (“Touch meeeeee”) predicts what Sage Introspekt has gained prominence for in recent years.
47. Sly - Badbwoy
From 1998, “Badbwoy” could be released today and it would become a Soundcloud-storming, festival-broaching speedy g tune of the year. The only thing that differentiates it is that there is no reliance on reverb - just raw shifting low-end and a well-placed sample of Cutty Ranks’ famous “Six Million Ways to Die” vocal drop, which wasn’t quite yet the dead horse that producers now beat mercilessly. This track comes from the classic Slippin EP, one of the greatest collections of Sylvester tracks of all time - of the four cuts on there, three are on this list, and this is the first one.
46. Jeremy Sylvester - When It Comes Down, Spread Out
No other Sylvester production communicates danger like this one. Sampling a jungle classic, he toys with noise all over the track, from the watery, Drexciyan filter over the snares to the dynamite explosions of cymbals. As the track builds, he samples an MC who sounds in genuine panic of some almighty danger (“SPREAD OUT!”), as though not spreading out sufficiently will result in hell opening up. Judging by the bassline, we were too late.
45. Sly - Girls It’s Allright
Another from 1998’s Slippin EP, “Girls It’s Allright [sic]” takes quite a ropey R&B performance - with a vocal run that is… less than desirable - and adds an instrumental of plucked strings and steady bass that balms over the vocal like vaseline on dry lips. If anything, the decidedly average singing ability adds to the “regular romeo” charm of the track.
44. Dirty Life - I Got You (Dirty Mix)
When “dirty” is in both the alias and title, expectations are high, but “I Got You” is a swooning, sexual track whose vocals are like a Looney Tunes character (“Do you feel what I’m feeling?”). It also glimmers with proto-Niche bassline magic in the way the poppy hook is left unchopped and the vocals are pitched sky-high.
43. Sound Affects - No Man (Club Asylum Vocal Rub)
42. Sly - Way Down (Bump & Wiggle Mix)
Bump & Wiggle is potentially a nod to Grant Nelson’s “Bump ‘n’ Flex” tag, and “Way Down” brings its onomatopoeic tag to life by way of a glitchy rhythm with a heavy off-beat. There’s a deep vocal pitched down in the same way a Sammy Virji tune might (“wayyAAyy”) and the jumpstarting drum fill at the top of the drop lands with the same satisfaction as an old banger’s engine finally kicking into gear.
41. Jazz Mondo - Feel the Jazz Flow
Not much of this track can be called jazzy, but is rather one of his spaciest tracks with analogue-sounding celestial twinklets. A boomy speed garage bootleg of Yvette Michele’s “I’m Not Feeling You” released as a white label through Azuli Records, Sylvester wraps the bass around the sharp hook, filling its gaps like a colourful background retroactively splotched on a portrait painting.
40. Club Asylum - Don’t U Wanna Be
Part of the cohort of 4x4 tracks from Club Asylum after the chart success, “Don’t U Wanna Be” paints the scene of a night just finishing its peak and the people basking in it: the bar is recovering and is out of one of its signature drinks; the classics are queued up on the ones and twos; the smoking area is expelling so much hot air it could heat up an airplane hanger. It tells all this through a rubbery bassline, shining electronic winks, and a soulful three-chord sample that naturally upends during the bridge.
39. Funkaholics - Down 2 Da Ground
More than deserving of the Funkaholics alias, “Down 2 Da Ground” takes what could be the adlib track from the outro of a soul tune, it’s delivered with that level of nonchalance. Like a word painting, the breakdown has a loose slump to it that is ballasted with a skinny organ tap that you can also hear in Jayda G’s “All of Me”.
38. G.O.D. - Shake It Up
“Shake It Up” has a long and interesting history. It was once a deep cut which rested on the “Special” edition of the “Limited Edition” series under the G.O.D. name. But once the revival of UK garage came in the late 2010s, DJs like Interplanetary Criminal and Fold began to play it out amongst modern speed garage productions, giving it a new life and showing how remarkably well it’s held up for over two decades. The bass obeys the track title, rising inexorably as the whirling siren at the start sets that motion up from the very beginning. Today, “Shake It Up” is among Sylvester’s most recognisable tracks.
37. Jeremy Sylvester & Paul Benjamin - Untitled [Duty Free B1]
This killer piano house cut is on the one-time Duty Free vinyl, but this weaponry wouldn’t pass through airport security. Guiding a wistful vocal (“you need to dream”) through an easy strut, it’s yet more evidence of Sylvester and Benjamin’s creative chemistry.
36. G.O.D. - Got 2 Go
The dastardly bassline and jackhammer snares feel like the Sonic the Hedgehog bonus round of Sylvester tracks. A sequel to a track from his Shaken Not Stirred EP, “Got 2 Go” exhibits Sylvester’s most kitchen-sink tendencies, never letting go of a constantly descending acid synth that reminds of Michael Gray’s “The Weekend”. But with the dirty and grime caked onto the urgent vocal sample, it was called for. The way the shouting moves with the cartoonish bassline like a dance partner is contagious.
35. Jeremy Sylvester - Tear It Up (2-Step Mix)
It’s like he knows what you’re thinking. The flickers of cumulus cloud-shaped synth pads sound like a Dreamcast menu screen, chopped up into a beat you want to live in as a vocal sample instructs you to “get in the beat”. The 2-step mix of “Tear It Up” has a reserved impact, but the off-handed keyboard solo snakes into the most off-beat pockets, digging into the rhythms and forcing you to change. Done so casually, it’s maniacal from Sylvester.
34. G.O.D. - More Than Just a Friend
A familiar sound pops up here - the same click from #55. Across his discography and most prominently in this section of time in the late 90s, Sylvester recycles so many sounds not because he doesn’t know how to sample more, but because he doesn’t need to - he’s such a skilled arranger that he’ll present it in a new way like it ain’t no thing. “More Than Just a Friend” uses a very simple breakdown that leans on the vocal sample, everything including the cavernous organ stabs radiating a cold echo. However, when a sax comes in for a few bars, it activates a change-up in how the vocal sample is deployed, and the same thing happens again with a hit of galloping piano. The effect is that the vocals here plant themselves in your brain after the first listen.
33. 24/7 - Strung Out On Your Love
The 24/7 alias was used sparely, but still came up with this piece of citrusy net bag of Vitamin C+D. He slows down hardgroove drums to create deep piano house with vocal cha-chas enlivening the rhythm (“I couldn’t the words to explain”, goes the singer).
32. Club Asylum Vs Lady M – Mr Big Stuff
Released as a white label during Club Asylum’s chart run, “Mr Big Stuff” has a sticky growl of a bassline underpinning the charismatic Lady M on top (“so, you think you’re Mr. Big Stuff?”). With cartoon skidding and a “go!” interjection, it highlights the modern lack of crunch to it, a sheen that would go on to define the mid-2000s when music began to become more digital in its production and distribution.
31. The M.F. Project - Body Grooving (RAW Mix)
Completely different to the original, the “RAW” mix of “Body Grooving” is slicker and, true to the title, groovier. It uses the same vocal hits (“A little higher”) that NUKG Monthly readers may recognise from Jon Buccieri’s “Lose Control”.
30. G.O.D. - Untitled (Limited Five A1)
Somehow able to feel lean and agile while the grizzly speed garage is a heft on the shoulders, the best detail on this unnamed track from G.O.D. is the dark knocks of wood blocks and boxes that project so much negative space, you don’t want to stray from it for fear of being lost in the dark.
29. Funkaholics - Brooklyn Funk
Starting with a dagger-sharp snare that rocks the track with a sway, Sylvester plays with the mechanical edge of funk here, weaving the imploding boom of a pressure-overloaded machine with a coolly-deployed bassline that has the same viscosity as that on Daft Punk’s remix of Ian Pooley’s “Chord Memory”.
28. Jeremy Sylvester - French Whispers
The flag bearer for Sylvester’s 2024 debut album Underground Hero, “French Whispers” nods to the provocative female vocals of Lil Louis’ key house music text, “French Kiss”. This eight-minute excursion certainly finds a similar feel, both in sampled and constructed elements, as Lil Louis’ 1989 song, expanding a standard bassline into something mystic and alluring with ponderous bells, all in a deep, nourishing pigment. Halfway through, it switches up into a bubbling chamber of wonderful chopped chords, pearlescent and treacling like marbled swirls.
27. Question 4 You - So Happy
More bootleg material with Paul Benjamin, “So Happy” takes Kim English’s “Nite Life (Armand Van Helden Mix)” and uses house strings and shrewd clippings of English’s most ecstatic moments to guide it to a greater height. That is made clear right off the bat when it belts through the door with spiralling vocals at a volume of jet turbines. Similar structure to Jon Buccieri’s “Lose Control”, a duct-tape bootleg which adds a bonus section in the middle of the original Van Helden mix - a DJ’s dream for surprise dancefloor reactions. They feel the moment of elation come over them when a sparkling LFO-filtered piano knocks in, to which the vocal responds with vocal hills the size of the Grand Canyon (“you are my everything”), blasting away any notion of doubt.
26. Frances James & DJ Face - Girls Play Too (Club Asylum Remix)
Released at the apex of their chart run in 2001, this remix is so predictive of what the likes of Delinquent would create years later in bassline, with its tip-toeing organs, acoustic guitar and orchestral nods to disco. It’s lavish, the way they add colour from all directions from the quite rudimentary original. It actually feels like this is the actual OG from which Frances James and DJ Face dubbed, so expertly do Club Asylum tap into and unlock the soul of the song behind it - a retort to the notion that only boys could play around with the opposite sex in the club.
25. Miles Fontaine - Give It to Me
The Street Dubz label, with its primary-school font reading ‘Miles Fontaine’, is a reassuring signpost and 90s seconds into “Give It To Me”, the chords are enough to hotwire the tune into ignition. Dig deep into that rose-hued, life-affirming chord progression, and it transfers the feeling of self-actualisation, of getting that person on the dancefloor, of a plan coming together. A playfully evasive bassline fills out the low end, swinging all manner of ways on each kick drum while an MC provides light hollering (“One time! Tw-Two time!”). This is a tune so bad, it was left in solitary confinement on the vinyl.
24. G.O.D. - The More I See
Initially set course with a scatting 4x4 beat, “The More I See” is settled by vinegary chords into a cooky classique. The vocals here shift keys and notes to the point of sounding like circus horns, and the titular vocal hangs so loose that it croons right at the end of the bar. Once again, it’s hard not to note the Edwards-ness of it all, in how multiple vocals drape over each other, and the bridge section which turns from smooth caramel to popping candy. Initially untitled, the title for this one arose through online discussion and YouTube videos which bracketed the line to help online diggers. Sylvester obliged with the new title on future, more official releases.
23. Strickly Dubz - Thinking Of You
The flipside to one of his most important tracks, “Thinking Of You” is still up there in terms of significance. Stapling together a jock-jam organ sample and stammering songstress (“I keep-I keep-I keep thinking of you”), the pulse-and-crunch 2step of this tune not only knocks with loads of squiggling synth detail, but opens up the tunnel into the lineage of Detroit techno, electro and Prince’s Minneapolis funk. It has one of the most interesting beats in his discography, its pulse locks down the garage bounce with an electro anvil, but the hi-hats are still out of line to keep its feel. The moment it truly completes itself is when the drop welcomes in a narstie little gulping bass descent.
22. G.O.D. - What You Want (Mix 2)
In a similar way to how Jamaican MCs would step up to add their own spin on famous riddims, here, Sylvester bootlegs an iconic garage vocal sample from the era. He takes the slightly sour drawl and douses it in echo, adding a speedy g bass ascent with steady, clattering percussion and drum fills assembled from make-do parts. Further into the track reveals little hints of organ and French house whirrs that peek around the corner of other genres in a thrilling way.
21. Sly - Flexin
“Get a little more body action”, goes the shimmering vocals on “Flexin”. He stringently assembles a loose rhythm with carbonated synths that rollick on two close-by notes, the bassline mimicking the E-numbers excitement. In the second act of the drop, he beds in a synth that could conceivably be from Tangerine Dream, folding in and out of itself in all sorts of alien ways. Play this at 134bpm, and it’s incredible.
20. Deep Cover - Deepin Side
“Deepin Side” is a mesh of out-of-the-blue ideas that flit between straightforward breakdowns and kaleidoscopic builds. The core movement stems from a thick, physical double bass that only tinkers with a three-note routine, sounding like something A Tribe Called Quest would sample. After the first breakdown, the second build feels like it changes tempos, hinting at another, more intense techno track with a reversed alarm. I guess there is something deep inside in the tune here, but Sylvester chooses to hop over it, faking out back to that chilled-out, prone, reclined bass.
19. Champagne Bubbler - Keep It Real
Champagne Bubbler is Sylvester’s most prized alias - a one-EP-and-done project of exemplary garage house with a perfect hit rate. Its sole EP from 1997, PT1 - “Rump Funk”, never had a sequel but with three all-timers on one disc, the project was already whole.
“Keep It Real” is the one track with an extra dub mix on the wax, and throws a sample of R&B group 702’s “Steelo” over a high-to-deep chord progression with a moving house string that follows the same pattern over greater steps before taking the track to a breakdown (“I’m gonna break it down”, the crooning sample calls out). Then, when many would look to coast the track home, Sylvester adds a gorgeously squelchy Prince-ian synth four minutes in. Like the rest of PT1 - “Rump Funk”, “Keep It Real” seduces superlatives.
18. Lutricia McNeal - Someone Loves You Honey (Club Asylum Mix)
“Someone Loves You Honey” is originally a 70s country song, then a very dated 90s R&B tune by Lutricia McNeal. On the remix, Club Asylum took it to 4x4 garage with a hot-footed swing that has a nearly identical off-beat pattern to reggae and is something of a Sylvester trademark.
17. G.O.D. - Let Yourself Go
From the same collection of tracks as #22, “Let Yourself Go” takes its time to fully unravel. Where you’ll start to see some semblance of a tune being built after 30 seconds or a minute, this one is all drums and a smattering of vocals until 90 seconds in, where it kabooms into darkness in classic speed garage fashion. The vocal sample elevates you off the floor, crossing far into the drop, the up-close bass here is incredible for having zero spatial awareness. It’s so subby and clicky, the peak of the pointillistic bass he’s been using on tracks like #71 and #80, with a random rawness to it. While on first listen, it may feel vacant, further listens reveal it to be one of Sylvester’s minimalist triumphs.
16. K-Ci & Jojo - Tell Me It’s Real (Club Asylum Dub Mix)
A stone-cold 2step classic,”Tell Me It’s Real” was one of the first times Club Asylum were called up to remix a major-label artist, and turned a decade-emblematic, suit-and-shades slow-jam soul song into a chart hit in the UK, placing at #16. Adding their signature crunchy drums and speeding up the vocal harmonies, the defining touch would be the light vocoder frazzling the “show me happiness” line, which has become one of the 2000s era of 2step’s most recognisable textures. The dub mix keeps it all in but uses it more sparingly, in the process balancing the two sides of Club Asylum up until this point - its pop remixes and R&B bootlegs. Plus, they add an all-new bassline which works the drop like a stereotypical Thai masseuse: sometimes harsh, sometimes alleviating.
15. Champagne Bubbler - Got 2 Work
“Got 2 Work” has its influence in modern-day dance music - the swirling bass helixes here would later be adapted by Disclosure on their track “ENERGY” - but I read it as an ode to the old-school funk that Sylvester grew up listening to. He was fed a diet of soca and calypso from his musician-heavy family, and this track most concretely displays it all at once - its ferocious use of the human voice, minimalist beats and off-kilter elements that force groove. The fun starts when we arrive at the galloping piano chords which are warped as though the vinyl has been through a kiln, complimenting the aforementioned bass wibble at the climax. Vocal duties here are provided by a grunting James Brown-like voice that sounds like a human trombone. This element speaks to the title most, and the way funk music commanded you to work, and not in a 9-to-5 sense.
14. Sylvester - Sylvester’s Groove 98
Part of his Shaken Not Stirred EP and the sequel to “Sylvester’s Groove (Part 1)” as Big J from 1997, it makes sense that this is his eponymous track. It looks all the way back to Sylvester’s origins in jungle with its slanted, hardcore-inherited hook. Where part 1 is a much deeper, swirling pool, the ‘98 edition is a steppy machine.
13. G.O.D. - Share My Love (4x4 Mix 1)
Under G.O.D., Sylvester saw fit to make four mixes of this track, but the first one nailed it. “Share My Love” is soul music with French filter-house flavour, seemingly made in the middle of a club night nearing its euphoric conclusion. The centre of it all is an incredibly theatrical disco sample with night-encapsulating string geysers that are strung out into a trip above the clouds. The way the sample wraps around to the beginning has such a joyous resolve, and atop a restless funk bassline, it’s a moment punctuated by the nasal female coos, which don’t say a word but feel the gravitas. Sylvester’s father was in a relatively successful disco group called the J.A.L.N. Band, and that spirit courses through “Share My Love” - it’s full sequins, stage lights tuck-and-rolling, tight shorts-wearing, prude-scaring disco.
12. Sylvester - Stay
Fast and fragmented, “Stay” moves rooms with just a small clump of sound tossed on the second bar, like a banana skin for the beat to trample on. With this laid down, Sylvester finds so many grooves from one vocal sample, which is introduced with “don’t you want me to stay-ay-ay-ay…”, the last two letters being bounced around. From there, it mutates into a shuddering, barely-audible “ah-ah”s, an “oo-yeah” jumping off the snare hit, an “alright” in a slightly earlier position and even more. Sample spelunkers can find the sounds used on “Stay” elsewhere on this list - the same drum fill as the previous track (#13), a similar drum skip as #42 (which is from the same piece of wax), a vocal nod to #61. He tests many sonic ideas multiple times on tracks, but his best tracks applique them seamlessly into something new.
11. Sylvester - Nightmare Dub
Even more nimble than the previous tune, 1998’s “Nightmare Dub” even taunts at how its pace borders on careening - “ya got ta slow it down!” goes a blustering soulstress. Its intro sets that before the sample even comes in, as a Korgan basketball weaves in and out of a squeaky chopped part of the vocal (“you-you-you”), sounding like an angry weevil cutting a triplet rhythm out of the beat. Sylvester puts it all in control, creating gleeful organ house with a unique discordance that catches you off-guard. At the apex, the bubbling organ rises into dark chords, while the quivering vocals fall into light chords. It’s a mad world, pulling the track from one side to another. We’re treated to three drops here, built up with a quiet chorus of Rick Flair-style “woo!”s and funky ad-libbing that, like #59, has Janet Jackson’s timbre.
10. G.O.D. - Watch Ya Bass Bins
One of Sylvester’s all-time greats, “Watch Ya Bass Bins” is now located in the Speed Garage Hall of Fame™ under velvet curtains, spotlights and a VIP rope. Its title borrows a phrase uttered by a Sheffield pirate radio DJ which was sampled on hardcore breakbeat group Altern8’s “Infiltrator 202” from 1991. Sylvester canonised it in writing and linked it to the garage community to the point where it’s now a staple phrase, all from the strength of this track. The way the bass is double-tracked for extra horsepower is such a unique thing to this track, as well as how long the drop runs for. The further it goes, the more echoed it becomes, inviting a flurry of vocal samples that fly above and below it. It still makes mincemeat out of any discerning dancefloor today.
9. GI Sly - Da Scientist
“SOMETHING RRREAEAEAEAEAL” - the vocal sample is undeniable here, made more so by the way Sylvester grabs the voice’s tongue and stretches it to within an inch of its life. The build comes in multiple sections, from the LFO sample to the Ibiza-ready piano that never gets uncaged, only sent to the dungeon. Perhaps this song’s greatest impact is in the sinister drop. Filled with sinking chords and anxiety-inducing noises, swells, voices, treacles and hisses, it precedes the ideas of nocturnality that the oncoming wave of atmospheric dark garage would take a liking to a few years later, and from there, dubstep.
8. Cleopatra - Come & Get Me (Asylum Remix)
I haven’t written much on Club Asylum’s remixes in the earlier entries, and that’s mainly because it’s writing more about pop than dance music - they don’t cut up the vocals as much during this period. Their remix of Cleopatra’s “Come & Get Me” is an example of a remix that doesn’t alter the vocals too much, but not only changes the mood but adds to the story of the track. The original is dramatic g-funk that is desperate to get the guy (the “I have to get your love” line is so addictive). Club Asylum soothes their brow, and turns their fears of getting the guy into a reassuring certainty. With gorgeous harps that nest down next to them and Wookie-referencing organs they now sound joyous in anticipation of love, and what was once an almost anguished call-and-response chorus is now celebratory.
7. Club Asylum - Hypnotise
The Everest peak of the 4x4 era of Club Asylum from 2004, “Hypnotise” sandwiches doo-wop harmonies and a smitten vocal (“won’t you be mine”) into between Teletext-fidelity synths and SG Lewis-style celestial cascades. When the bridge reveals, it adds a manic woman who bellows, (“Baby I’ll find a friend / to spend THE weekend with”. Linking them together is an elastic bass that slides down notes and climbs up them just as quickly, like a game of snakes and ladders on 6x speed.
6. All Saints - Bootie Call (Club Asylum Boogie Punk Dub)
The original All Saints track that Club Asylum dubs here is as sexless as lingerie in a coffin. Timidly talking about “rough stuff” with an almost horrorcore hip-hop beat that could been from the Marshall Mathers LP sessions, “Bootie Call” topped the UK charts in ‘98, showing just how wrong the British public can be sometimes (oftentimes). Club Asylum’s “Boogie Punk Dub” miraculously inspires movement from it, zooming in on that “rough stuff” line and dangling it over a hot, jittery jacuzzi of organs that cross over each other effortlessly. The chorus hits a gorgeous minor-key descent that turns these lifeless hushed vocals into catwalk showstoppers, in control of the funk commotion around them and could convince a Buddhist abbot to come over for some fun.
5. Champagne Bubbler - Give You Love (Real Love)
The opening, definitive cut of the Champagne Bubbler alias, “Give You Love (Real Love)” packs speakers out with a coercive sound. Its atmosphere is elusive, pumping a sheet of fog before turning away suddenly, a wayward horn flying away like a released party balloon. The vocals follow a roughly similar pattern, glitching and sputtering (“I will give you-give-you love”) as though powering down. Then the song fully reveals itself, embroiled in a purple-toned bassline which animates the atmosphere and drums that could snap a suspension bridge in twain. “Give You Love (Real Love)” is also the best deployment of a feature of the wider PT1 - “Rump Funk” EP - how the second build climaxes with a fan of cymbals snapping into the beat one bar late, pinning dancers back to the floor (“Come ‘ere baby!”). There’s a purity here, an eagerness to surprise and delight. You can only oblige.
4. Sly - Right n Wrong
While Sylvester usually picks out key lines from acapellas, “Right n Wrong” is a rush of words in comparison. But its cycling phrases result in the sort of clarity that vocal garage can only bestow. The consonants are masked, but the vocals are cast out: “It’s kind of hard to make things work / tell me what is real / got to live on me today / I know the difference between right and wrong”. Splashing alongside is a slightly fizzing organ that lands right where a hi-hat might be, and in the rear, disco strings hook up with shorthand synth calligraphy. When it crests towards a eureka strike (“every day”), it flings into a moment of joyous single-mindedness, momentum carrying forward to finish the mantra: “gonna do, what I want”. During this time, Jeremy went into Nice ‘N’ Ripe’s studio and banged out tunes ad nauseam, “on a daily basis”, in his words. He embodies the spirit of this track more than anyone.
3. Shola Ama - Imagine (Club Asylum Remix)
Pulling off Shola Ama’s last UK hit, “Imagine” pulls off the same trick as #8, but to even greater effect. Some Club Asylum remixes resuscitated a dodgy tune, but this one was ripe for their treatment. The original is derivative of Aaliyah and Timbaland’s R&B team-ups, a song in which she’s about to spill to the object of her fantasies. Similar to Cleopatra, where there’s tension in the original, it’s relieved by Sylvester and Emanuel’s MIDI guitar which cradles Ama’s vocals. Shining like sunlight shimmering on seawater, the digitised quality of the guitar here feels ripped from a ringtone, and can be heard in modern-day garage tracks by the likes of PinkPantheress and Erika de Casier, who were likely influenced by this track in particular due to its chart success. Taking Shola Ama up to 2step tempo makes for several gorgeous details - the sped-up “I know” adlib run, the stack of vocal harmonies in the sunset-coloured final chorus. The leaves on the trees look greener with this in your ears.
2. Kristine Blond - Love Shy (Club Asylum Remix)
Kristine Blond may have only had this one hit, but her voice is platinum, made even better at Club Asylum’s pace. Its falling “hey-hey-hey-hey” hook is all smiles masked in butterflies, and when sped up to a 2step, a bright giddiness is brought out of the vocal runs. You’ll find a MIDI guitar just as in the previous entry, but it’s wed with sharp MIDI string thrums, wa-wa chords as luscious as red wine, and subbass as juvenile as a bouncy castle. The lolling cadence of the latter is so proto-Niche, and “Love Shy” would go on to be revitalised by Manchester bassline group Platnum in 2008, realising that proto quality with a version that made its heartfelt chords even sweeter. However, the Platnum version loses the bridge, which shifts the key down to make the perfect runway for a climactic high note from Blond - a release of those butterflies.
1. Strickly Dubz - Realise
Sylvester wields two records akimbo. In one hand, he holds the 12” of a hip-hop soul queen, which he chops into an agonised vocal that repeats “I really want you to realise” over and over. In the other hand, a long-forgotten album from an 80s funk group, whose woozy synths are scissored and stretched to form the base of “Realise”, before nabbing one last detail - a glockenspiel jingle to end the loop on a curious note.
“Realise” is Sylvester’s peak samplework, whose abrupt shifts are taken advantage of, used as quirks that altogether make this joyous contraption made from scrap parts. Look within its cogs and you’ll spot how one daggered bass is cleverly handed off to a Korg bass and back again, how it resembles the crunk and vocal jaggedness of new jack swing. No matter which element is at the forefront for whatever brief moment, the same soulful presence flows through it. It’s an emblematic tune, one that marks the excellence of club-focused 2step and encapsulates the feeling of a Sunday afternoon rave-up akin to the Happy Days nightclub. It’s Jeremy Sylvester’s best because it most vigorously exudes a quality that defines his greatest work: it sounds so happy to exist.
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