Breakstep

Breakstep
Stylistic origins	2-step, breakbeat, drum and bass
Cultural origins	Late 1990s, London, UK
Typical instruments	Sequencer, turntables, samplers, drum machines, synthesizer, personal computer

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

History

Breakstep evolved from the 2-step garage sound. Moving away from the more soulful elements of garage, it incorporated downtempo drum & 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 Dee Kline'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>> (a club night at Plastic People, London) playing host to Zed Bias and Oris Jay (aka Darqwan). They were mirrored in breaks by producers like DJ Distance.

References

↑ http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2008/nov/10/scene-heard: "Long before dubstep became the popular fare of weed-addled students around the country, there was a genre that helped the transition from the sickly sweet sound of UK garage to the bass-drenched south London sound. That genre was breakbeat garage, now more popularly known as breakstep."

UK garage

2-step Bassline Breakstep Dubstep (Post-dubstep) (Dubstyle) (Drumstep) (Wonky) (Deathstep) Future garage Ghettotech Grime Speed garage UK funky

Other electronic music genres	Ambient Breakbeat Chiptune Dance Drum and bass Electro Eurodance Hardcore Hi-NRG House Industrial Synthpop Techno Trance Trip hop UK garage (incl. Dubstep and grime)