This was doing the rounds on the old blogs a few weeks back... also heard it on Radio 1 the other day:

Florence & The Machine - You Got The Love (The XX Remix)

I was listening to it at work over and over today and it's just beautiful. It's two step shuffle, cut up vocals and booming bass made me remember how much I love UK Garage! So I thought I'd dig out some gems. UKGarage is a pretty much maligned genre but it was a necessary precursor to Grime, Dubstep, UK Funky, well basically all UK dance music since. So here's my personal mini Garage lesson:

(sorry some of the mp3s are 128s of vinyl rips so not perfect quality...)

First up is this classic psychedelic garage cut circa 2001/02 from Sounds of da Future... MENTA. (Or is it Sounds of da Future by Menta? I've never been sure)

plenty more after the jump...

Don't know what this one is. From 2001, this was a white label, and it possibly sums up everything you think you hate about UK Garage with it's R&B vocal but I love it's minimal arrangement & amazing Monkey Islandesque steel drums & organ.
Unknown UK Garage thing
also as a treat here's the dub on a 4-4 tip Unknown UK Garage thing (side B)

This is a more transitional form from 2003 or so: Sticky - Golly Gosh (Mr Fidget Remix) showing some extremely dubsteppy tendencies.

Of course everyone should know this: if you don't you're missing one of the most incredible albums of our generation. Burial gets called dubstep for some reason but it doesn't really have a huge amount in common with dubstep as far as I can see: it's Ambient UK Garage, ok? Also his sound gets described as the sound of deserted London streets, but that doesn't go far enough: it's the sound of a dead earth, with the remnants of the machines we've built left behind, trying to make sense of themselves through the fragments of our culture we have left. It's almost unbearably sad, shot through with a sense of unspecified loss. I think Untrue is probably my album of the decade, and it's basically garage, you guys!

Anyway here's the tune which you should already have anyway Burial - Archangel.

Continuing Burial's ethereal garage sound is Nagual Sound Experiment with the last track from Invisible Movements: NSE - Hexorcism. NSE is Cameron Leonard-Schroff's (also of awesome psy-breaks project Mood Deluxe fame) psychedelic dubstep project & the album is well worth checking out. This tune is the happy ending which Burial never has - whilst the last tune on Untrue, Raver, lifts the mood a little, it's still infused with that sense of loss. I like playing this tune from NSE after listening to Untrue, it's a transcendental escape from the preceding claustrophobia...

Anyway bye!