Two Step (genre)

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Two Step (also 2 Step , UK Garage , Garidge and formerly Two Step Garage ) is a style of British electronic music . Two Step mixes funky breakbeats with the aesthetics of garage house and influences of dub .

The typical drum pattern in drum and bass is also called a two step.

Characteristic

The style is defined by the extreme shuffle of the beats , which is unusual for breakbeats but typical of house . By unlike other breakbeat styles such as drum and bass irregular shift of the beats (see syncope ) - usually at a House for typical 4 / 4 -Stroke  at a pace of about 130 BPM - creates the characteristic groove of this music. The breakbeats are often accompanied by a very deep, dubby bassline.

In simple terms, the beat pattern of Two Step and House can be distinguished as follows (details in 1/8 steps):

Two Step:

Kick: X _ _ _ _ X _ _
Snare: - - X - - - X -

House:

Kick: X - X - X - X -
Hand Claps: - - X - - - X -

The structure of the hi hats is the same

history

The fast house variant Speed ​​Garage is considered to be the forerunner of the style . Along with Drum and Bass and Speed ​​Garage, Two Step is one of the only truly British style developments in (electronic) popular music .

The style was particularly successful in the UK in the early years of the 21st century . Two-Step achieved its great popularity there mainly through a large network of pirate channels that quickly picked up and popularized this style. Remixes by American and British rhythm and blues artists are very popular, for example for the shooting star of the British contemporary R&B scene Craig David (remix by Artful Dodger ), which gave the style an additional boost. Other well-known producers include Zed Bias , MJ Cole and Wookie .

In Germany and Europe , Two Step was unable to establish itself except for a brief hype in 2000 and the emergence of small local scenes. In Germany the best-known representatives are the Gush Collective , a group of producers from Dortmund , Essen and Düsseldorf , which include Herb LF , Yoshino and Nordstadt Union . However, their music is better known in Great Britain than in their homeland. Many of their tracks became celebrated club successes there.

The most successful two-step artist in Germany is the British Mike Skinner aka The Streets , who landed in the German single charts in 2004. Mike Skinner, however, has no real reputation as a two-step musician in his home country. He used two-step elements mainly on his album Original Pirate Material (2001), on which sociopoetic texts were in the foreground. For his album A Grand Don't Come for Free he uses elements of another, still young British style (see next section).

In the meantime, the importance of Two Step as a genre, both in Great Britain and internationally, has declined significantly, and there is hardly any lively scene left. The genres grime and dubstep , which were also partly rooted in the garage , appeared on the scene, especially dubstep was able to attract ever greater attention. A growing scene emerged that emancipated itself from the various breakbeat genres and more and more from garage and produced a very independent and versatile sound. The British journalist Simon Reynolds sees this development as part of a “hardcore continuum”.

Typical tracks

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Simon Reynolds: The Wire 300: Simon Reynolds on the Hardcore Continuum Series # 6: Two-Step Garage (1999) - The Wire. Retrieved June 7, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Infinity is Now: in defense of the hardcore continuum. In: FACT Magazine: Music News, New Music. February 3, 2009, Retrieved June 7, 2019 (American English).