Birth: 1998 Bloom: 2000

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). Also, musicians like DJ Quest and Ed209 foreshowed a style proper.

Breakstep found a second wind with the wave of dubstep`s popularity because these genres always went together being played at cult London Forward parties. These parties enriched the style with producers Zed Bias and Oris Jay (aka Darqwan), who`ve finally formed style`s sound and attracted a new generation of musicians and DJs such as Search & Destroy, Quier Storm, Elemental, Toasty Boy, Distance, Marlow, Reza, Blackmass Plastics, Warlock, and many others artists associated with labels like Destructive Recordings and Storming Productions. The most notable records of this style were released on the Bingo Beats label.

Also read: Breaks, Speed Garage, Garage

Umbrellate style: UK Garage

I like Breakstep

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