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Breakstep is a breakbeat influenced subgenre of UK garage - originally called breakbeat garage, now more often referred to as 'breakstep.' This sound is similar to, but not the same as dubstep, with some cross-over between artists.
Breakstep evolved from the 2-step garage sound. Moving away from the more soulful elements of garage, it incorporated downtempo drum & bass style basslines, trading the shuffle of 2-step for a more straight forward breakbeat drum pattern. The breakthrough for this style came in 1999 from DJ Deekline's 'I Don't Smoke' selling 15,000 units on Rat Records until eventually being licenced to EastWest in 2000 and climbing the top 40 UK chart to number 11. Following this came DJ Zinc's '138 Trek,' an experiment with drum & bass production at UK garage tempo (138 bpm). This instigated a dialog between breaks and garage producers, with Forward>> playing host to Zed Bias and Oris Jay (aka Darqwan). They were mirrored in breaks by producers like DJ Quest, Osmosis and Ed209. Current descendants of these artists include Toasty Boy, Marlow, Mark One, Search & Destroy, Quiet Storm, Threnody, DJ Distance, Reza, Blackmass Plastics and Warlock, many of whom are associated with Urban Graffiti, Destructive Recordings, Combat Recordings, Rottun Recordings or Storming Productions.
http://www.breakstep.net
