Top 100 UK Garage Tunes of 2024
By Nathan Evans
Artwork by Two Dux Disco
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UK garage had a much looser year in 2024. It grew into fascinating shapes and formulas, folding new sounds together and bringing some sounds back that hadn’t been heard in aeons. We were treated to unusual new strains of trance synth, hard house and tech house bassline popping up in our biggest heaters, and the genre feels richer and more connected to club culture for it.
After reaching a point of bootleg ad nauseum in 2024, there was far less shameless, straight-to-market edit of freshly popular songs this year, once again reaching some kind of equilibrium. Skee Mask will be pleased to hear this, I’m sure.
Internationally, there were bits from Russia and Japan; Australia continued to become the go-to centre for class A dancefloor tormentors; and Brazilian garage made headways, lending its heritage and inventive ideas to the genre.
Classic 2step had a big year, with many R&B edits evoking the Sunship and Club Asylum sound, no doubt spurred by the last few years of PinkPantheress’ rise. But also, the years 2007-2009 are back in multiple forms, with the continued push for the OG dubstep and niche bassline sounds - once two opposing styles, now working on the same mission. And there were physical comebacks as well as stylistic, from the likes of Jeremy Sylvester, Tuff Jam, Duncan Powell and more.
NUKG Monthly presents the centurion of steppers. The pinging power ranking. The best 100 tracks that bombarded Bandcamp carts, Soundcloud feeds, aux parties and radio sets, or in some cases, didn’t. Either way, it’s the top set of UK garage in 2024.
While I try to stick to one tune per artist, there are a few select star players who managed to produce multiple great songs that excel in vastly different ways. And full disclosure: Bristol label ec2a releases appear five times on this list. I do writing work for them, but while there is a conflict of interest, ec2a also had the most entries in last year’s list when I didn’t write for them, so at least it’s par for the course.
Not all the tracks can be put into one definitive playlist, as these songs come from all different streaming places, but below is a Buy Music Club playlist for those who wish to buy the music in this list on Bandcamp, and a Soundcloud playlist to stream the available songs.
100. Bullet Tooth & Capo Lee - Keep It Rolling
Bullet Tooth rose to the top supplying a litany of bootlegs in 2023, but the masked producer stepped into original material this year. The topmost is “Keep It Rolling” with Capo Lee, who himself casually became the breakout MC of UK dance music in 2024. Bullet Tooth knows how to make a fitting space for Lee, filling out his flows with bubble-popping rhythms.
99. Shaking - Naughty Girl (Instrumental)
The instrumental to this Beyoncé edit from Shaking does plenty on its own. The full-on parade of synth tones coalesces into a multicoloured mosaic that doesn’t need to be tethered to another song, it holds a different emotion altogether.
Bandcamp | Soundcloud
98. Royal Flush UK - Fighting Dub
The mixing may be a touch undercooked, but the way the 2000s R&B vox meet a chilling Eskibeat climb sweeps away the concerns.
97. scruz & Kippo - Watermelon Man Dub
Scruz is the go-to NUKG producer for rappers like Niko B and namesbliss, but this flip of the opening beer-bottle flute sounds on the Herbie Hancock classic makes for something unexpected and a little deranged.
96. Judeline - Soy El Único (DJ LUKINHAS Remix)
Minas Gerais, Brazil producer DJ Lukinhas flips a head-in-hands ballad from Spanish artist Judeline into a new lane of ballad garage that follows on from the inventiveness of albums like Rosalía’s MOTOMAMI. Making the guitar a more prominent fixture, he feeds the singer helium and ends with a Volt Mix lead-out that reaches back into Brazil’s club music history.
95. LWRNCE & CONNMAC - Be Somethin’
The Essex front two make a teasing stepper with a bass that swells briefly before disappearing back into the shadows.
94. Hizuo - Submissive Influence
The way the sonar tones and languid guitar ripple through this dub wobbler almost makes you forget you’re in a club.
93. Native - Doomsday Chicago
An MF Doom flip certainly isn’t taboo in 2024, but Native using a 2step pattern, Operation Doomsday-era soul, squeaky-clean record scratches and quiet storm vocals is as sweet as it comes.
92. TMK - Late Dub
Another tune from South London-based Sakura Selections, a brand new label for 2024, “Late Dub” is more the label’s speed - dingy bass where you can feel the air hitting your face. Many microscopic textures flash and twinkle, but you’ll likely ignore it in the wait for a sumptuous off-beat three-note phrase that pours out like gunge.
91. Cersv - aquecimento
The sour jazz chords that start up this track from São Paulo producer cersv are immediately immersive, guiding you to a short, muted loop of a Brazilian funk MC. He adds in curling horn hits, a breaks sample and grimey bass without popping the delicate late-night feel.
90. Bad Colours - Cookin’ (Plaisance Remix)
So very nearly venturing into Majestic Casual territory with its Euro tropical house horn, the uplift of the chords in Plaisance’s remix here counters it with its smooth, stabby tone.
89. BJ3 - Ração Dub
The mix is what makes this one. The 2step snap here is caught up in the sort of overblown reverb that many funk mandelão tracks have been experimenting with. “Ração Dub” even has the same long, colossus-sized bass hits in the build-up and eerie MCing. Though it’s finished off perfectly with a snakecharmer melody, it all wouldn’t be so gothic and trippy without the heavy mix.
88. Lovedom - Worker Man
One of over 50 free downloads released by BlueDollarBillz this year, Lovedom works an easy formula; dancehall vocals pitched up, looped to its most infectious part and made to mingle with a twisting dark garage rattle. The formula still works a treat.
87. Special Request - PULL UP (ODF VIP)
A crowd favourite this year, ODF lays down an additional edit on Tim Reaper’s remix of Special Request. It’s a simple jungle slo-mo, slowing down the unrepressed crooning made for a jungle tempo and head-rattling Reese bass of Reaper's remix - exactly how the best speed garage is made.
86. X & Ivy - Outro
The way the “a-repeat” vocal hit leads into each four-bar gives this one so much life. Rigid square bassline wipes in all sorts of directions before kicking into gear, a dancefloor mechanism that ceases to leave and even interjects with a splash of French touch.
85. Systile - Strike It Up
Korean producer Systile seemingly found a few spare lines of a vocal house tune and shaped them into a constantly-shifting series of hooks. It’s dry, clean-cut 4x4 with a brash choppiness.
84. Holloway - London Posse
With the founding of his own label Waylo, Holloway has moved into subdued, technically-genius tracks that don’t forget their dancefloor duties. “London Posse” has an 8-bar bassline that is barely there, but it vibrates the chest when next to a good soundsystem.
83. Mishavizhn & Shakhov - B Ready VIP
A bumpy, spacious track in the vein of Introspekt, the “Eeeeeeeeee-yah!” shout in the background sounds like the most overjoyed clubber at the back of the room.
82. Phono-Vibez - Me Myself & I (Dub)
This flip fits the original like a dart in a bullseye. The edit implies that the tune is being retooled for garage world of today, but in a spookily accurate recreation job, this one is fit for the Kenwood car stereos of the early 2000s.
81. Champion & Bushbaby - We Multiply
2024 was the year Champion well and truly left his target audience like a viral tweet. Collabing with Four Tet, Skrillex and Caribou (not forgetting going into the year off the back of “Hot In Here” with Sammy Virji) has meant more are aware of his bassline devilry, but “We Multiply” with Bushbaby was his biggest play in 2024. Building an utterly grotesque throb of bass that almost finds somewhere beyond ‘into the red’, they throw Killa P into the fray like a rinse and dry wash.
80. Harry Rodger - Narcissus
Released on Pressure Dome’s 5-year anniversary comp, “Narcissus” is very fidgety but stores some serene sound design. Peer in on the nimble bass slide, or the small detail in which a piano comes in before shedding its skin into something darker. It has brief moments where it threatens to grow out of its shell, but it’s content being light and washed-out, like looking at the sun through water.
79. aaron2.0 - Champion (Bubble Pon Di Bed Bianca Oblivion x XL Mad Edit)
If Bianca is a “million-genre DJ”, what could prove it better than a sexed-up edit that brings dancehall singing, a UKG beat, dembow breakdown and beat bolha sound effects? The focus moves between them so quickly, they start to blend together like an animation from a zoetrope.
78. Thys & Logan_olm - Soundboy
Logan_olm may not have known how to pronounce the name of former Noisia producer Thys when he punched in for “Soundboy”, but the yardie firestarter knew how to match the droopy shuffle he was given, with a snarling, wily performance.
77. Duncan Powell - Cheer Him Up
Duncan Powell returned to music on a hobbyist level this year, and “Cheer Him Up” may have gone against the 4x4 garage he made his name on in the mid-2000s, but the post-Edwards sampling has not skipped a beat. With little to no bass, he puts focus on the way he chops what could be doo-woop harmonies, slightly torn synths and Disney soundtrack strings and fashions together a bright soul track through the power of suggestion, letting you fill in the gaps.
76. Stones Taro - Deepest Downtown
Kyoto producer Stones Taro put out his debut album this year, and while he uses the runtime to wade into other stylistic waters, he reserved the first upright moment for this piece of subterranean future garage. The drums knock into cold washes of air as human vocals are playfully reshaped into a malfunctioning robot. It calls to mind Synkro’s steely architecture and clear fidelity. The looping bassline is the only source of warmth you’ll find down here.
75. Crks290 - GIVE ME
Below trancey synths sits one of the most fun-to-mimic basslines of the year: flying from side to side with the cadence of a kid pretending to be an airplane.
74. Shury - Aquecimento (LZR Rmx)
Another fine example of how mutually playful and beat-weaving the marriage of garage percs and Portuguese MCing is, LZR’s remix of Shury’s “Aquecimento” (the second tune on the list with this title) tests the theory in its most basic form. Reducing it to the rapping and drums in mutually flowing and skittishness, it dances in and out of 4x4 time like it’s pretending it isn’t there.
73. Liot - Slew Dem
Tributing a grime crew that was forgotten in the midst of Roll Deep and BBK in the mid-noughties, “Slew Dem”’s bassline ferociously matches the cadence of the crew’s flow, both fueling the crowd-wide skank out.
72. Tui x Chediak - 2 Rings
“2 Rings” adopts Brazilian funk’s penchant for experimentation by reduction. What sounds like a sun-soaked build spits out a drop with no kick drum, just red-alert bass hits. Nothing is truly sacred - take it from Tui and Chediak.
71. Pocket - Money
“Money” by Pocket is a tune as difficult to mix in as it is to Google, but the way the breathy Charlotte Day Wilson-like vocal swoons bound over ramshackle mechanical 2step makes it worth clanging for. All hard edges apart from the light underbelly that could have come from an Overmono tune, and it all hits with a force that could shatter windows.
70. DJ Cosworth - Ruff & Rugged
Hardline has ventured deep into many pockets of 2000s club music this year and blown off the cobwebs. Case in point: “Ruff & Rugged” from label head DJ Cosworth, a faster-than-average bit of minimal garage with a single plump bassline and funky ascent on the drums.
69. Jammz - Hit Then Run (Dokku Remix)
Walking in with a cocky strut, Dokku’s remix of “Hit Then Run”, backed by an entourage of grime MCs, hocks a putrid bassline directly between your eyebrows. Abysmal behaviour, but rewind that.
68. Ogasawara - Flashback
67. Main Phase - Grindin
The crown prince of the speedy g shuffler, Danish producer Main Phase, lent his production to the continued revival of Locked On Records this year. “Grindin” is sexy and subdued, with organs that bop about with a small melody and a cool poise, while pitched dancehall hollering phases in and out in an audio strobe light effect.
66. vurbank - HOT DAMN
“HOT DAMN”, and all of vurbank’s tunes, earn their all-caps stylisation. The New York producer’s style is utterly rabid and treble-heavy, and “HOT DAMN” begins by echoing Sunship with wordless vocal hiccups before squeezing through layer upon layer of chipmunked delirium. There’s one 2-bar section where it all deactivates, leaving just the percs and bass, until he reintroduces it all in one flashing whirlwind, as if to berate you for thinking this track even considered such deplorable notions as downtime and minimalism.
65. Buckley - Warlord
Main Phase and Interplanetary Criminal’s ATW Records once seemed like a vanity label for IPC, with its last release in 2022. Happily, it returned this year with a string of heaters in the summer, autumn and winter from the likes of Big Ang, Jamie Duggan and Silva Bumpa. It’s quite the Northern feel, but Buckley’s “Warlord” is the sort of planted dark garage that the South loves. Sampling Riko Dan’s hailstorm of a voice, you can hear a pin drop before he comes in, making the spinning, sputtering bass even more impactful.
64. Merker - Second Choice
“Second Choice” truly begins when a menacing tri-tone creeps in like the Jaws theme, a setup that slaps wicked smiles across the dancefloor. It reveals itself fully as a greasy bassline you could slip on, made tasteful with some coolly-added emphatic soul vocals.
63. Dismantle - Something So True
Twenty Twenty’s third VA comp was one of the best of the year, with a few tunes that take a hammer and tweezers to the garage rhythm. Dismantle’s is one such track, fashioning a break from 2step parts and adding a vocal hit that has a Leon Vynehall-like treatment to it. “Something So True” has a broken beat undercurrent, cribbing its jazz elements with its bluesy horn. The horn guides the track from section to section with spare phrases, making you yearn for it without really going away.
62. Mesoplonica - Insomniak
There’s a moment in “Insomniak” where an announcer bellows in the fog of this track, conjuring images of a past event now rotting in memory. Amidst the sinister emptiness of this tune, the drop fires rounds of varying sizes like a bass attack, ricocheting off the dusty junkyard percussion. “I can’t get no sleep”, says a voice, perhaps still struggling to process the night that’s just taken place.
61. dudino - e chiammalo
Dudino found a bright, lovestruck garage tune within an Italian neomelodica song. “e chiammalo” is one of those flips that throws the whole song into sidechained oblivion, but he turns it into a short, romantic bite of passionate romance.
60. House of Black Lanterns - Summon Like This
Golden age London dubstep has made a grand comeback this year, not just through garage artists like Introspekt but with the return of Tempa and FWD>>. “Summon Like This” combs its way through this era, of garage being dragged down to somewhere pitch-black and hollowed-out, leaving expansive room for heavy thoughts. House of Black Lanterns walks the tightrope of that Mariana Trench-sense of solitude but with a creeping presence, as well as goofy SFX that feel a little Jeremy Sylvester.
59. Tuff Culture - Exit Strategy
58. sooyeon fka Oh Annie Oh - Bye Hoe
As if to physically whisk her rival away, “Bye Hoe” neatly fuses techno and garage into one drum pattern, setting the stage for a bass that typhoons like a Pariah track.
57. BWK Project - You’re The One I Love Edit
It’s the slightest of edits, but a Shola Ama track needn’t be too laboured over. Sped up to the point where every line sounds like a vocal run, BWK Project adds in claps that tower above all else and, in the chorus, a single note of an off-key organ in front of the original instrumental. It’s just enough discordance to make it feel like a mashup.
56. DJ Perception - Future
Riz La Teef’s South London Pressings came back this year and met its swift conclusion, after being thwarted by multiple years of issues. The last release on the label taps up dubplate archaeologist Perception, and it’s a patient, breaksy garage mirage that strings together three long guitar samples, including a solo straight from the Sonoran Desert.
55. Iglew - Avril
UK garage and Avril Lavigne, together at last. UK producer Iglew recasts her most popular power ballad with an MJ Cole-style instrumental of plucked strings and electronics that swell from nothing. The pop-punk icon’s vocals are so thin from being digitally extracted on this remix, but it’s the sheer audacity to pair these monuments of the year 2002 together that carries it through.
54. UrMUMSBSMT - U Tell Me (99' Mix)
This bumpy one is a tall glass of orange juice without the pips; it echoes the year in the title like the diva house sample that seems to travel up a mile-long well. But all is not as it seems, as the machine-precise tech-house bassline hints at. The extra go-around in the build-up is a cheeky touch, and from there, Manchester producer UrMUMSBSMT lifts the veil off the track revealing a stark tech-house stomp.
53. Chokobread - Windows Vista Dub
Meme-ridden project Chokobread gives some love to the most fiercely-hated operating system in history. In his usual fragmented style, he pillages the sound pack and fashions it into an elaborate 2step mosaic rendered in frutiger aero gloss. There’s a catharsis in hearing these sounds mangled and crushed-up. The rarely-heard chimes get cut by the ends; the notification ding that once alerted you a program has stopped running becomes a percussive mound stopping the beat in its tracks momentarily; the hardware connect sound becomes a skipping bassline accent; and the logon sound you heard all too often after your PC died (that, fun fact, was made by Robert Fripp of King Crimson fame) gets smacked by a quad-combo of unaspirated snares. One man’s is another man’s treasure.
52. Jéeby - When I Think Of You
Another example of how Russia has been supplying extra helpings of the UK sound, “When I Think Of You” is a speedy organ garage flip of one of the most smitten love songs of all time. The organ melody is like a jam of the original’s hook, almost replying to it like the boy the girl is thinking of.
51. Dewey Decimal - TREAT ME RIGHT
Released under an unknown alias on South London Pressings, Dewey Decimal pairs a bolt-upright string rolls with an infectious circular cadence from the vocal sample, who scolds her lover after realising he will never complete her. It just sounds quality at this tempo, locked in the skips and shimmies of 2step. It’s like an exploit, almost too easy but gratifying nonetheless.
50. D.D. Goose - Jesus Loves UK Garage
Released days into 2024, “Jesus Loves UK Garage” cashes in exactly what the title promises. Served on a plate of deep house chords that could have been pulled from a Strictly Rhythm or Delusions of Grandeur white label, the track is topped with thick gospel vocals that leave in all the excess musical elements the sample smudged in, giving it a surreal, almost psychedelic quality, like being pulled between dimensions.
49. Lu.Re - It Girl Dub
One of the easiest club tools to slip into a set, this edit of the viral Aaliyah’s Interlude tune adds some biting synth stabs that match the original’s confrontational, bubblegum-blowing confidence. Oh, and a gooey low-end that doesn’t move between notes but carves through them.
48. Karma Kid - More & More (Fresh Stuff Remix)
Another exhibit of the growing ‘hyper garage’ sound pioneered by salute. “More & More” was a sluggish, vaporwave-y tune from salute collaborator Karma Kid, and it feels like it was made for Italy’s Fresh Stuff to remix, set up like a through ball for him to put him through on goal. His remix reminds of Thys’ Speedfunk EP, dosed up with the same adrenaline shot of French touch that could take the roof off of Rex Club. Filtered guitar loops spin you like a waltzer while the bass bounces between notes, but the way the track mutates into the second drop sends the track up even higher.
47. Muskatt - Focus
After years of becoming comfortable with garage’s skips, Muskatt has made it sound thrillingly broken once again. “Focus” hits with a snarling eagle’s cry that screeches over gulping bass and pots-and-pans percussion chugging out of line. It jolts in all manner of new ways, but arranged in a way that considers Newton’s Third Law; every action has a reactive sound effect, like how the dancehall vocals echo out into tightly-swung rhythms, weaving in and out of themselves like a hall of mirrors. It gives the equivalent feeling to what it must have been like to hear garage for the first time, like a busted machine to correct with your body.
46. Oldboy - Grab Di Mic
Manchester’s Oldboy loves his grime oddities, patois MCs and house sermons, and operates in a similar lineage to what Hardline is doing, folding in UK noughties dance history into garage. With a short, “badmon” MC appearance, “Grab Di Mic” plays it straight but saves a cheeky tech-house bass note that could have been field recorded from DC10 or lifted from a Hot Creations 12-inch. It progresses like a tech-house tune too, adding another spare note to rock with for longer. It’s interesting to see garage artists weaponising tasteful tech-house for their own gain.
45. BABii ft. Pholo - Tra$$$her
BABII’s feathery voice caresses a tune when she sings. That isn’t present on “Tra$$$her”, where she gets in her other bag - a coolly confident effeminate drawl over a slight industrial beat from frequent collaborator Pholo. Skittish and injecting snot-green low-end, the bass moves with its own percussive force, spurting like the chimney stack of a dangerous, pollutinous machine. BABII’s flow is a little reminiscent of how Iceboy Violet spits venom even at their catchiest. Lend your ear too closely to some of these textures, and they might give you a helix piercing.
44. 1-800 Girls - How I Feel
43. PLUS ONE - Llamada Romantica
PLUS ONE had a huge year thanks to the success of his winding UK bass tune “Bonk”, but he also released the most minimal garage of the year. Spanish for “Romantic Call”, which heads will appreciate, the Dublin producer plunders a Spanish pop vocal from which a long-lazy bass is built off of, keeping the feeling close and having a time-stopping quality. But it’s the open-mouthed background vocals that cycle between each ear that gives the track a time-stopping quality, as you hang on its next word that never comes. There’s only a few parts, but each is so considered and unlocks a frailty of feeling, a sensitivity that can only be done with a sparse use of elements.
42. SP:MC - Core Memories
SP:MC only had one release on his label this year and it came right at the end, but it sneaks on the list in the all-round UK dance music veteran’s usual fashion. The sexy bassline on “Core Memories” gets down deep, but every other chord is a forceful stab just to make sure you don’t fall under the spell of its syrupiness. He nurtures this idea with matching synth whisps and the cleanest shake-and-bump percs in the land. At around 3 minutes in, a topline slithers from above with the same tantalising ring as that on Jamie xx’s “Gosh”, but disappears into the dark cavern SP:MC’s music always lives in. Like a reverse Shepherd tone, each iteration of the tune’s bassline seems to move deeper and deeper into the dark.
41. IsGwan - Original Chapter VIP
Aussie beatsmith IsGwan has had an immaculate 2024, particularly with his hardgroove edits, but his contribution to Warehouse Rave’s 91-song-strong dub compilation (one of three from him) is a garage whirler. There’s no thumb initially, just a thump and shakers keeping sickly oscillating bass within the lines. When the percs do come in, they’re met with a clatter, disrupting it in just the right way.
40. Armes - Run From War
Another Logan_olm edit courtesy of New Zealand’s Armes, “Run From War” is crouched dark garage with a flashbang of drill. As per usual, Logan destroys the mic like Buster Douglas, calling you an “Eeeeediot boy” while the bass lurks past the microphone. It reminds of Logan’s many freestyles in recent years on Travs Presents and Off License Sessions, but “Run From War” is a window into what an appearance on Oblig’s Rinse FM show might sound like. Off the basis of this, it needs to happen.
39. Swami Sound - Hope It Stays (Kaisui Remix)
Much has been made of Djrum’s remix of Objekt’s “Ganzfeld” as one of the tracks of the year, and while an amazing track, how can we overlook this four-minute remix which squeezes in Justice bass, LFO acid, Disclosure-ish chops, a halftime breakdown and a free jazz breakdown? The original “Hope It Stays” made last year’s list at number 15, and Kaisui’s upending opens it up to worlds of possibilities.
38. Macarite - Nite N Day
Macarite is heading up a return of the divas, leaning fully into the flirty interplay between 90s R&B and bumpy garage. “Nite N Day” relays off of bedheaded vocals that glow with a “woke up like this” treatment, and is as silky as a backless satin dress, tight as a huggable waist. How much of a trip it is, then, to find out the vocals sampled here are male. Mix up the styles, and mix up the sexes and all.
37. Interplanetary Criminal - Manchester
Time to admit bias - as a Manchester boy, this one has found a soft spot. “Manchester” also shows that Interplanetary Criminal still has that Ruff Kru in him, but has shaken off the dub sirens in favour of new, techier soundbites. It starts utterly static, before previewing an utterly pungent Reeser that sounds like an ogre snoring, threatening to wake up and capitulate the dance. A real “oh no”-er.
36. Shuffa - Energy
On “Energy”, Shuffa crosses garage with the sort of early pirate radio hardcore stylings that were co-opted by bad Eurodance by the mid-90s. Pumped-up jock jam synths carry through into the cracked drop, and in the downtime, the synths have a purposeful emptiness to them to make the impact all the more colourful, like an entire revival just came into fruition in one moment. “Energy” leans more towards the euphoria of hardcore than its unflinching darkness, but we’re inching closer to the same ideas as the short-lived, very excellent hardcore garage moment explored by 2 Wisemen at the stroke of the new millennium.
35. SWV - Downtown (Ximon Bootleg)
We’ve heard plenty of TLC bootlegs, but Florida producer Ximon looks to another stylish R&B trio from the 90s in SWV. He finds a commanding chorus amongst the raunch of the original, dislodging it whole like a block of ice from a mountain and giving it a sourness with watery house chords. The texture of the sample is soaked in reverb; it’s like being in the pleasure palace yourself, so to speak.
34. Stixy D ft. Amber Jade - Let Me Down
“Let Me Down” is a swooning soul cut which uses the classic trope of love songs that could also be about the DJ. Amber Jade lends a weightless performance, but can add heft that punctuates when she asks, “are you gonna let this go to waste, boy? Can you keep your word?”
33. KEELER - Missing U
This one comes from Irish label Choki Biki, one of the foremost names in the surprisingly consolidated Dublin garage scene, which includes names like Prozak, Plus One and First Second Label. Geordie producer KEELER pinches Silva Bumpa’s particular punch, a nimble yet slack speedy g swing. There’s a bleep that has the robotic tunefulness of a phone keypad, but the vocals are utterly brokenhearted, the opposite of a tone poem. Somehow, you can’t believe the chorus was placed against any other tempo, beat or atmosphere.
32. Dem 2 - Wish U Well
Dem 2 is a legendary name in garage. It’s actually a UK name, but much like the Nice N Ripe crew did in their heyday, Dem 2 wears the disguise of a New York house outfit. “Wish U Well” could almost be a 2step mix from Todd Edwards, should it be possible, with its ragtag string of soundbites including a female vocal that, in a few cuts that don’t reveal much, sounds like Kate Bush. There’s a glowing moment where she arcs her voice skyward along with a bell singing, before being interrupted without resolution. It’s like seeing a glimpse of a golden snitch, as joyous as it is evasive.
31. Kelbin - Turn It Up
Kelbin loves 2step as much as he does piecing bright, mechanical sounds together. The maker of last year’s song of the year regardless of genre, “Turn It Up” exercises his lean swing once more. At the drop of three beat-commencing cymbals, he launches into a flurry of E-numbers, cherub vocals, natural vistas and techy interfaces.
30. Clearcast - Sleepless Dub
Cali producer Clearcast gets the title for ‘Bassline of the Year’. As girly yelps spin into a haze like chopper blades, the bassline transforms tension into a gooey playpit in an instant.
29. Paul Rayner - There Is No Other
Impending 4x4 doom with a bending church organ wailing as loud as a spaceship alarm system. So commences this sci-fi whomper from Paul Rayner, one of speed garage’s most devoted producers. He’s been making tunes since 1992 and never really pumped the brakes, instead diverting into other styles that are helpfully labelled all over his Bandcamp. The new generation of diggers adore him, from Interplanetary Criminal and Soul Mass Transit System to Chris Stussy, and “There Is No Other” shows a knack for kicking up a radioactive stink. “There Is No Other” parachute-jumps into the drop which has those same 4x4 kicks still intact.
28. Saydou - Madan Dub
Disclosure is one of the most enduring dance music live acts on the UK festival circuit, and look to be the next Chemical Brothers in that regard. Go see them and you’ll find the biggest responses (apart from the hits) go to their West African expeditions filled with funk drums and infectious chanting, like “Tondo” and “Etran”. Where for Disclosure, it’s a stylistic excursion, UK-Senegalese producer Saydou makes it his mission. “Madan Dub” works a once-popular hook from Salif Keita that was used by Martin Solveig, going back to add more of the original than Solveig did. It’s a peak-time singalong with a torquey low-end, bottling up the afternoon break in the clouds that always seems to happen once at every festival.
27. DJ Crisps - Dance All Night
Dutch producer DJ Crisps’ name is synonymous with edits of crowd-pleasing songs, but “Dance All Night” is his most misty-eyed. A Brazilian-sounding soul funk stepper with jovial horns and sparkling glockenspiel, it’s got summer sunset dances burned into it like a branded cow. It’s easy to be serenaded by this one.
26. Cottam - Get Out My Head
25. R U FR? - Fearless x Joyrider (Chjörk UK Garage Remix)
The great thing about UK garage is how it can multiply the feeling of a pop song. With its swing, it’s like a positive graph where the X-axis reads “tempo change” and the Y-axis is “factor of pop”. “Fearless x Joyrider” bumps a K-Pop song up by 30bpm, and the effect is palpable, a cross-continental 2step anthem that makes Club Asylum’s remixes look lightyears ahead. R U FR? shakes off the trudging, plastic disco of the original, eager to please with more hidden-away and sensuous piano jolts and harpsichord, and the way it races through each hook makes for a sweet you have to try again and again to savour.
24. MPH - Shoot to Kill
Just when you think you’ve studied MPH’s moveset, he finds new routes of attack. Centred around a New Orleans hip-hop sample, “Shoot To Kill” breakdown is his trademark 4x4 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.
23. INVT & Introspekt - AYO DJ
Miami’s INVT and LA’s Introspekt’s collab EP for ec2a brought each other into their own smokey den. The percs have something lodged in their throat but still manage to strut as a track from either of these names should, and Introspekt pulls from her “Watch Me Work It” dub to create a seasick bass.
22. S1 Dubs - TELL A BOY COME
Massively backed by ec2a this year, S1 Dubs’ grime-indebted tunes have lit up 2024, “TELL A BOY COME” being just one of them. A hefty 4x4er with enough force to switch the axis of the Earth, in the eye of the cyclonic bass is a tight spiral that makes the track feel like you’re inside a Tesla coil powering up. S1 switches it up in the second half with a crunching 2-step fallback.
21. Misnoma - Cagliostro G
Garage samples are often reaching and ruffling in familiar places: old house, R&B, grime and dancehall records. Misnomer pulls from a Miyazaki film score, and with it, a whimsical new flavour. It’s a garage track with wide eyes and a thirst for adventure, opening with a cowbell-laden samba with high-gravitas funk synths, and where a flute section would ordinarily shine alone, the beat kicks in. Bass stomps across a soaring flock of jazzy flutes in a gorgeous, baffling orchestra that should be as distasteful as Metallica’s symphonic metal albums. But on “Cagliostro G”, Misnoma pulls so far into another world that he might have waved hello to Voyager 1 along the way. You hope it’s charted course for a new silk road of ideas.
20. Soul Mass Transit System - Burna
Released on his Grand Soul Starter Pack USB (the one that looks like Mr Sparkle from the Simpsons), this dub is pure filth. Piercingly minimal, this one’s build-up is more silence than sound, broken only by a slithering melody that reeks of danger - like gazing into the lion’s mouth, its canines pointed down at your temple. Its drop is untelegraphed and borrows dubstep’s darkness for exactly the right impact.
19. Illegal Shipment - Police Raid
“Police Raid” is the first track on Illegal Shipment’s Running Fugitive EP, an achievement in dark garage. The track starts with an anxious ticking, before the beat doesn’t so much climax as it pokes its head from a side alley and walks briskly, head constantly turning as the sounds of police sirens swell. Every morsel of this song, and the EP for that matter, is soaked in tar and there’s no light peeking through, not even for Christmas.
18. Camoufly & Dazegxd - Nothing Left 2 Say
Collaboration is often spoken in terms of compromise, but “Nothing Left 2 Say” by new-school producers Dazegxd and Camoufly is shaken up with a coke-and-mentos carbonation that feels like these two multiplied their powers. Providing all hook and no verse, the track is built around blissed-out keys, sugary piano, jangling woodblock and chunky kicks that all glisten. It has the same effect as 2008 video game De Blob, splashing colour with reckless abandon.
17. Royal-T - Needed U (Oblongar Remix)
For Royal-T to release on Japanese Spraybox is a wonderful thing. For Tokyo producer Oblongar to return the favour with an equally great remix is even better. The original gleefully wraps itself up in organ bassline and speed garage, while Oblongar turns it into a 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.
16. Wilfy D & K-Lone - On the Down Low
From the opening harp and sparkle combo, it’s clear that “On the Down Low” has been transported directly from the Twice As Nice era. Bristol’s Wilfy D is a purveyor of R&G - garage with the silkiness of 90s R&B - and together with Wisdom Teeth co-founder K-LONE, they create a syrupy R&B narcotic with pleading androgynous vocals and galloping organ. In a fair and just world, Erika de Casier would hop on a remix and make this a duet.
15. Vyzer & Kaisui - 4SURE
Unbelievable that this is a free download. UK duo Vyzer and Kaisui gather a two-bar loop that doesn’t know whether it’s coming or going (“I’m for sure / I don’t know”) and lets work itself into a 2step fever dream. They paint with lush silvers and translucent edges, particularly on the glass keys that drop on the tune’s double-bounce, but there are echoes to the past with honking horns, watery breakdown keys and toony barking.
14. Silva Bumpa - Passion
Silva Bumpa has been smuggling disco influences into his garage works in 2024, finding the two genres’ common naughtiness with none of the kitsch. It’s in the ascending bass pulp of “Passion”, that walks with seduction on its mind before teasing with restraint. It’s in the shrill and showy singer who tells the boys to stop trying to please the girls and let loose. Additional sound puts you within an imposing factory floor, but it, along with the vocals which sound like they’re recorded through cotton, is swallowed under the sheer weight of the groove here. Just like the best disco records.
13. N4tee - Bam Bam Dub
Last year’s list included another edit of Sister Nancy’s dancehall monolith “Bam Bam”, but who can blame me? It’s one of the most sampled songs of all time for a reason, and N4tee’s bootleg is an absolute Swanton Bomb whose arrangement makes all the difference. Once the intro is finished bouncing to the base of the summit, the track cuts out completely to play the original at its tempo. After going at 140bpm, the original track feels like a plod - like the start of that one song from Zorba the Greek. After 45 seconds, Sister Nancy gets choked out and fried into a vocal stretch before building back the tempo with “bam bam dilla” on a loop.
Seeing this played out in a club will let you know how effective this is - by trusting in the song, the diversion makes the drop so rewarding, and it’s a trick he doesn’t try to pull off again, mercifully. The dancefloor’s collective attention span has become cooked for a number of reasons, and while this is no “Opus” moment, it does show the payoff can be sweeter when first left in the lurch.
12. Jeremy Sylvester - Flashback
It’s been a celebratory year for Jeremy Sylvester, who, if you haven’t heard, is the goddamn master of UK garage. He finally released his debut album in 2024, but before that, he put out his first major release on an outside label in a very long time, blessing Bristol’s Shall Not Fade. The title track “Flashback” smacks hard and messages with its deep house chords in equal measure, with a glitched bassline that seems to balloon with each iteration. Also, 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 drill’s answer to Elle Woods, to borrow Heven Haile’s words. “Flashback” also has the Fish56Octagon seal of approval, making my praise utterly hollow by comparison.
11. salute & Empress Of - one of those nights
TRUE MAGIC, salute’s debut album, was a crowning moment for the arrival of hyper garage, the sound he’s been pioneering for the last five years: a fast cross between garage and house that borrows just the right amount of EDM’s sweetness and force-of-nature feel. “one of those nights” is the head’s pick from the LP for the way it siphons a portion from a dusty soul harmony which feels influenced by hip-hop beatmakers like Madlib. The way the kicks hit turn those vocals, as well as Empress Of’s slightly computerised crooning, into an ecstatic blur. It’s like he’s taken Madlib and Empress Of out on a Skyline-powered lap of the Red Bull Ring.
10. Villager - Walk Away Now
Villager has more ideas than he can hold in two hands. You can see it in how he operates in his fish-eye-lens studio videos, and his music retains all the exciting details he toys with. It’s what makes the first Justice album so electric; how every four-nar has its own unique pockets of detail, and the breaksy “Walk Away Now” follows and even deepens this path. A lot of what I wrote about his single from last year, “Every Single Time”, can be applied here, so instead here are my three favourite moments from “Walk Away Now”:
The shrieking wipes and finger drums that sound like Villager has just dissected the DAW file of Skrillex’s Quest For Fire
The rickety guitar that seems to morph into fizzing Plutonium-coloured synths
The way the main riff splits into harmonised Siamese twins and each ear
Between him and producers like Waleed, garage has a bright, restless future ahead.
9. Diffrent - A Little Closer
The people’s anthem for 2024, “A Little Closer” became a festival sensation and one of the songs of the summer (finally toppling Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky”). It’s gratifying to see German producer Diffrent hit big with the same unification of speed garage and organ house that Paul Sirrell does so well. Its organ riff starts off par for the course, but its signature trick happens when it descends like a game-over jingle, and Diffrent wisely carries this through into the melting drop. I wasn’t convinced initially - I thought the vocals were tinny and cloying - but its undeniable hook has plastered itself all over the images of summer 2024 lodged in my brain.
8. Jon Buccieri - Lose Control
Thrown onto Bandcamp with an unassuming blank white label cover art, “Lose Control” is an odyssey of classic rave that envelops into something far greater than it ever needed to be. Its beginnings are dead-centre in the Chicago Loop with its stabbing house chords that melodically throw unexpected shapes. There’s an MC who has such a swagger, darting between the house claps like they aren’t even there (“feel your body burning with desire,” he smooth-talks). Transported to the dungeons of the UK in the 90s, the track launches into wicked speedy g, before a piano coaxes rave euphoria out of “Lose Control”. It’s a climax-upon-a-climax, punctuated by skyrocketing female vowel-tearing. You don’t even need the command to lose control.
7. C-Motion - If You Take Your Love
When I assembled the final order for this list, “If You Take Your Love” from Prague producer C-Motion climbed from the mid-80s to challenging for the top 5. It’s a golden sample lifted from cooing R&B, whose melody repeats while its lyrics alternate, and the way it chops into the next bar mid-word gives it a tension that never resolves, only growing into the rise. It lines up with the Korgan to make a delectable one-two, making the vocals feel even more slippery and beguiling. It all carries into the drop because what more needs to be done? And at the break, it pulses out into a bass that honks like a trucker horn. Ballon d’Or calibre.
6. Caribou - Broke My Heart
It’s crazy that a Canuck has made one of the best garage tunes of the year, no less Caribou, someone who has flourished from IDM to psych-pop to house. His music has progressively gotten more highly strung, and that’s what makes this cute 4x4 bop tick. “Broke My Heart” is a bop to mask his emotional frailties, covered up by vocals from him, altered to sound like a small girl. Plastering over the hurt is a beat that encompasses the simple joy of 2step pop from the turn of the century, and Caribou somehow makes the glitches of the analogue instruments feel warm. The moment most pertinent to the track’s inner pain is the synth build which rains down the euphoria. Caribou using AI-altered vocals has provoked some negative responses but technology isn’t the focal point here, it’s human, after all is said and done.
5. Silva Bumpa & Megan Wroe - Without U
Niche bassline has returned in 2024, and Sheffield’s Silva Bumpa is its most devout disciple. By any metrics, “Without U” should be among the Turkey-teeth, Love Island dance pop in the vein of Philip George’s “Wish You Were Mine”, but there’s a purity to the joy here. Megan Wroe has a PinkPantheress-like conversational-ness to her, the fluid of good spirits flowing through as she overlaps herself in the chorus with lines celebrating being newly single. Those very round pops of Korgan you can hear in most Bad Boy Chiller Crew tracks today are backed up by saturated harpsichord, xylophone and synth frills all adding texture that takes you back to a time when Sheffield was a powerhouse in UK club culture. Now, it’s happening all over again.
4. Muskatt - Ain’t Sure
“Aint Sure” is the second entry on the list from Muskatt, but there are so many tunes from him that could have made the cut. I posted a clip of the track saying that I’ve never heard UK garage like it, and while people heckled MJ Cole, 4 Hero and Benny Ill (even Murlo aka Muskatt himself cited Steve Gurley, D.E.A. Project and Groove Chronicles), nothing truly quite has the serenity of this tune. A delicate track that chops a film score and feeds it through a gramophone, and the breakdown dips into a minor-key kiss-off between fluttering synth arpeggios and wispy strings. It sits nowhere near a club setting, yet is so content of place.
3. Sharda - Have You Here
Incredibly, Sharda is another alias from Murlo/Muskatt, meaning the Manchester producer is the only artist to have three entries on this list. On “Have You Here”, he chops French house disco bass with a guillotine and adds slapstick chord strikes and flip-flopping diva house vocals that trip over themselves chasing the beat. So abundant with movement, it flip-flops, pirouettes and crouches, spins and seesaws, and the breakdown double-times into corybantic 4x4 with inverted vocals. As one voice murmurs “in my head…” underneath this avalanche, it clicks how Sharda layers samples like Todd Edwards might. He uses his structuring, too, how he used to create three different sample patchworks that push off of each other for more momentum. No wonder it feels a mile a minute.
2. Introspekt - Singamo Bootleg
When I interviewed Introspekt a few months ago, she cited Benny Ill’s “Poison” as the key to the particular, Baltimore-influenced kick pattern that makes her tracks so essential. “Signamo Bootleg”, a lithe Latin rap-garage frisk, adds another ephemeral swing to the formula, charmed by babbling background vocals and gyrating “hey hey” vocals that affirm the sexy mood. The unspooling rhythm here is one-of-a-kind and fucking fierce, all without using a prominent bassline, apart from the swirling bass grunts in the cool-off section. With what feels like double the amount of hi-hats as usual, this one shakes the body in so many minute ways that you’ll look like Courage the Cowardly Dog.
1. Barcode - Entreat (Nisk Remix)
I threw this track towards the end of the first column of the year, a cool idea that wound down the playlist of the article on a more earnest note. However, it has stuck with me through the year like a loyal friend, being there for long, pensive walks at night when I’m feeling absent or my worst fears have come true. ‘Entreat (Nisk Remix)’ is a head-cleanser masquerading as a club track.
Nisk is a fresh-out Bristol producer whose remix of |||||||||||||||||||| (also known as Barcode) is built from a woozy loop that DJ Koze might catch - odd, scuffy and strangely comforting. Familiar snares come in to rein in its choppy workings and point it to an ascent, before it unblemishes into a nocturnal breakdown that could parse the reddest of mist. Jazzy keys ripple like a quiet moment from an ECM jazz album. It’s such a startling moment on a garage tune that you can’t help but ponder its delicacies.
Nisk uses a vocal sample that isn’t from the original track yet matches the tone perfectly - “Come back to, come back to me”, she stammers. The second part flashes its teeth with a grizzly dark garage switch-up, bass oscillating before being settled by a small spacey feathering of keys. It floats down, grounding itself and you at the same time.
Garage often gets described in such narrow terms sometimes, being some of the most immediate, agreeable dance music around. But this remix captured a special moment that is felt as much as it is heard. I’m just grateful that above everything, it was garage that got the honour of delivering it.
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