Inside the Tech House Garage Crossover
NUKG Monthly is Nathan Evans' UK garage and club music column. This edition examines whether the new strain of tech house garage is a faithful callback or a collective move towards commercialism.
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UK garage and tech house stand poles apart when looking at them on the surface, yet the past few years have seen their powers consistently combining. At the top of the ladder, Sammy Virji and Disclosure have both separately collaborated with long-standing figure Chris Lake. Some of the biggest garage labels are adopting the sound, with ec2a welcoming Nay Barr and ATW enlisting La La and Riordan, the latter of whom made a tech house edit of Stanton Warriors’ “Bring Me Down” in 2024. New labels and scenes are cropping up dedicated to pushing this synergy, from Liverpool’s Paul Street Sounds to Swingers, a label purported to be based in Benidorm. Even Highrise, once the crown prince of the Shuffle ‘n’ Swing Facebook group, has been dabbling.
“I think the current crossover is interesting as someone who enjoys digging into oldschool tech house, prog house, techno and drum & bass,” says Z_Disc, a regular in the Bluedollarbillz Discord server. Tech house is a style defined by its focus on steady groove, which puts it at odds with garage, but opens up the potential for a new kind of ambiguity to be found within a garage track. “What makes that focus great in my opinion,” Z_Disc says, “is that tech house isn’t telling you how to interpret the track and what to feel. You can attach yourself onto the raw fundamental sounds.”
However, over the last 30 years, the origins of tech house would be largely forgotten, meaning that the phrase ‘tech house’ has several meanings today. For a select few, it springs up the dark-label records and unpretentious London parties of the 90s and early 00s, whereas to a great deal more, it refers to one of the most commercial sounds in club music. Is the tech house garage crossover a loving callback to this era in the same way that hard house garage is, or is it a collective move towards more commercialism?
There are many ways in which tech house sits at odds with UK garage in a sonic sense, but culturally, their origins have a lot of overlap. Both began in the mid-90s UK clubbing scene as an approach to DJing first, before it was a production style. Tech house began in Farringdon club night Wiggle, with Terry Francis, Nathan Coles, Mr C and Evil Eddie Richards realising a true merging of Detroit and Chicago from British folk who loved it, just as UK garage records were the product of people loving US imports. The result was long, minimal music that focused on sustaining a rhythm that sits in between techno and house BPMs. Equally, tech house bore roots in a London record shop, as its community gathered around Croydon store Swag Records, just as UK garage did around Pure Groove and dubstep around Big Apple.
Peer in close, and you can detect traces of garage even in the darker, grittier side of tech house’s early years. “Many of the earlier Wiggle and Swag releases were a mix of tech house along with tracks with 2 step breakbeat programming, often switching back into tech house part way through,” Z_Disc explains, listing two major early labels. Nathan Coles’ cult-classic Tech House Phenomena 2 mix from 1998 owes a few of its tracks in part to speed garage, in tracks like Big Hair’s RipGroove-quoting “Manor House Mix” of “Flobadob”, or the swingy Delinquents remix of Big Hair’s “Dougie At The Ockie”. Reese bass also barrages its way into late 90s cuts like Samuel L Session’s “Givin’ You”, and Oxia’s “Go Back”, which brings the speed garage out of hardgroove. In 2001, Timmy.S & JB’s “I Got You” illustrated the connection forming in real time with its percussion, a broken rhythm which is noticeable from the intro, but growing with even more flair as the track progresses.
As UK garage grew unfashionable and tech house slowly turned into a commercial sensation, this connection faded. But in more recent history, UK-born, Berlin-based Alec Falconer has become a key influence on the current wave of tech house garage by throwing the individual styles on the same releases. 2020’s The Boat EP pitted breaksy 2step tracks with Piz Buin-smooth tech house tunes side-by-side, tied together with an unflashy, insular and spacious sonic fingerprint. Other producers took the leap in bringing the two together on one track, creating 2step precursors to the crossover like Chris Geschwidner’s skippy, science lab-tested remix of Seb Zito’s “95-96”. You can feel the potential for added hypnoticism and space with the straightened-out hi-hats, but still able to add in more cluttered breakdowns. James Andrew’s “Billy & The Clonasaurus” seeps into straight electro, connecting those worlds through a third angle.
However, the new blood of ‘teckaus’ garage is more of the 4x4 variety, and began in Liverpool. Paul Street Sounds has facilitated this sound since its launch in 2023, lending a platform to Nay Barr and Cadence, with Charlie Rice also a part of the scene. Rice and Nay Barr’s “Dark Sensation”, though fuss-free, strikes as a eureka moment for the combination, nestling frayed percussion over a rhythm that naturally pushes a straight 1-2 swing on the feet.
Just a few months later, Leeds label 20THiRTY was founded by a large group of local producers and DJs, including rising name DXNBY. 20THiRTY’s early EPs cross classic and bumpy garage elements with modern tech house swagger - take DXNBY & Dec.K’s “Scooby”, with its cock-of-the-walk stride. Connor Lloyd’s “Needle On The Record” is far more skittish, liberally tossing sound effects and vocal shouts all over the gooey descending bassline.
As Z_Disc pointed out to me, one difference between the current crossover and what went on around the turn of the century is that this time, we’re largely seeing garage outfits shift closer to tech house rather than the other way around. DJ Cosworth’s Hardline Sounds has been a massive propagator. While the label started out as garage dubplates, Cosworth’s will to showcase the full breadth of his taste quickly took over and expanded the label, as subseries like Body High threw floaty electro/techno curveballs, and mainline releases from Amor Satyr & Sui Mata, Yes Raven and Dual Monitor broke the expectation that garage was its speciality.
One outlier that proves the rule is Argentina’s Pablo Aristimuño, whose “Sound Pressure” landed at #28 on my Top 100 Garage Tunes of 2025 list. Argentina’s club music landscape is dominated by tech house, with garage a minnow by comparison. Aristimuño sought to differentiate himself within his local scene by borrowing from garage’s percussive swing. “[Tech house] is a sound that has had everything done with it, so my idea was to try and experiment,” Aristimuño tells me over voice note while on tour. “To merge everything in a sound that could represent me very well. The funny thing is that after six months, in early 2024, I was hearing other artists on the same path.” In creating something new for the Southern Cone of America, he unexpectedly acquired enough of a rep in Europe to release on labels like ATW, Warehouse Rave and Moxy Muzik. Similar stories can be found elsewhere, such as in the Netherlands with Gabriel Muñoz. With even international producers arriving at this sound, there is undoubtedly something in the air.
While tech house and garage have historically met far before, this new generation of producers are generally less influenced by the 2000s period than the scene of the 2010s, by which time the genre had morphed significantly. Production duo and label Dungeon Meat is a major North Star for Charlie Rice, Nay Barr and Interplanetary Criminal, while Oldboy and Ho Gosh have expressed adoration for artists like Reflex Blue and Redshift. However, there is a distinct presence of the drab commercial side of 2010s tech house - Nay Barr and Charlie Rice have both cited Patrick Topping as key early influences, with Rice also mentioning Jamie Jones and Solardo.
After the high-energy speed garage and hard house garage moments, tech house garage crossover responds to a demand for slower, more groove-led garage. Hovering at around 130-132bpm, slightly quicker than usual tech house which languidly lives in the 120s, it’s not quite the muscly, po-faced chug that you may find in DC-10. While a pristine example of the form, you can still hear the garage underpinning at the start of Salford Dargz’ “Raw Doggin’”, still taking a leaf from the cheeky skippiness of bumpy garage.
Tech house garage’s emergence may not just be a change in audience demands, but an outward critique of the way speed garage has become more and more of a reheated strategy for success in the past few years. “I think the surge in speed garage’s popularity over the last half-decade has caused a saturation of very similar-sounding tracks that aren’t offering much to the conversation,” Z_Disc concurs.
With garage’s momentum-shunting drum skips inviting themselves into a style of club music so predicated on smooth grooves, there is an inherent tug of war that forces compromise. Indeed, there’s a more casual energy to this music that is at odds with the boffin-ite stutter-and-chop choreography of 2step or nerviness of bumpy house. Razor-thin bumpy garage organs make cameos (Connor Lloyd’s aforementioned “Needle on the Record”), often flanked by record scratches that operate like drum fills, or Masters At Work-style hand drums like on Jude Lenihan’s “Cool Lemon”. For the most part, the UKG swing is significantly dampened.
Noticeable other deviations from UKG crop up as tracks advance - kicks thump with a smidgen of extra muscle, and tracks introduce themselves more coolly. Rather than leading in by a sample or a long build, tunes like Charlie Rice’s “Roller” plunge into the bassline with no forewarning, highlighting the switched emphasis towards low, matte basslines that let you feel the rumbling frequency of the low notes, its piercing quality. Another effect of this is that there is a lot less ‘airbending’ than in a high-intensity speed garage track, opting for a dry mix more akin to 2step.
Common sonic signifiers include the classic M1 organ, which appears as far back in the crossover’s history as Candece’s “Stomp”, all the way to recent major label-backed tunes like “Party Out” by Riordan & A+. Conversely, the whirring graft that sets an industrial scene in Nay Barr’s “Harlem One 12” pulls off a rare feat by bridging the two genres in an entirely one-of-one sonic landscape.
However, in attaching UK garage to the goals of tech house, so much of what makes the genre so full of character is lost. The makeover feels like an act of stripping down its truly quirky elements, deemed ‘too silly’ for this stern world of tech house. For one, vocal melodies are as rare as unicorn milk here, favouring spoken hooks such as the B-boy block party callouts on Oldboy & Ho Gosh’s colossal “Get Ya Crew”, or the litany of old-school rap samples that ec2a alumni MUCKANIKS plunders like it’s an all-you-can-flip buffet. It seems like a deliberate avoidance of sugariness, instead favouring machismo.
Look in the right places, though, and the brightest spots push forward a true wedding between classic tech house and the qualities that make garage such an animated genre. One such place is Swingers, a new yet prolific label headed up by DJ Cosworth and Oldboy. With its country club aesthetic, home base set in British holiday home Benidorm and a roster filled with one-shot aliases both related to golf (Embassy of Swing, Harry Putter) and not (Morty Fyde, Lil’ Louis Bega), Swingers inverts the self-seriousness of tech house into a take-the-piss personality which sets the tone for its equally goofy catalogue.
They’ve brandished their own hallmarks quickly in the 25+ releases they’ve dropped onto Bandcamp since 2025. Prog house synths that are placed pointilistically and smoldered in reverb (Ben Nevis’ “Untitled Ben”), while loungey chords often cushion the wriggle of the bassline, ridding the style of big-room theatrics. Flat square basslines run amok across the aliases, but on Sniff & Rich’s “Dem Ready”, amidst record scratches and breakbeat intermissions, a “Watch Ya Bass Bins”-style double-tracked bassline is looped in for scalding funk.
The brainchild of two multi-genre Discogs diggers, Swingers takes advantage of the additional space afforded by a slower tempo and more straight-cut groove. Oftentimes, tracks will be basking in large chunks of just drum and bass, but in its greatest moments, they find plenty of ways to play with shuffle and swing. Ronaldo Moon’s “Hip Dig” maps out a world in a loop with cows mooing, Todd Edwards-ish key chops, flying saucer dopplers, acid leads and caustic fizzes. On the flip side, “Fishy Freaks At the Pinball Tournament” has a whiff of Eskibeat crossed with dub techno and G-funk, often stacked atop one another. It’s teeming with stimuli, but creates a thrilling unpredictability from section to section. For this, Swingers is reigniting bumpy garage for the new crossover.
Nevertheless, the key to success in this new style is not solely by creating a Looney Tunes episode’s worth of sound effects, as Leeds-based label Heavy Hitters proves. Home to self-styled ‘intergalactic funk junky’ Captain Wallop, Jack Hackney and more, their sound takes it to a more electro direction, with dry mixdowns dominated by Casio keys and square basslines that give it a DIY feel.
Wallop’s “Strange Operator” may be the most quintessential in the catalogue. Its loping chords evoke a lost underground white label dropped down the back of the record stacks, until an utterly filthy second drop instil a relentlessly gnarled groove with a contorting square bassline. There’s nothing laissez-faire about it.
Heavy Hitters hasn’t hit double-figure releases yet, but is littered with sonic details that restores garage’s capacity for swing-terplay. Nice N Ripe’s influence coats the conga-lined drums of Malachy’s “Holly Bad Girl” as well as the organ section of Tim Taylor “Armageddon”. Captain Wallop’s “6M” shows love to the stretched speedy g vocal, and RTK Tarantino’s remix of “Holly Bad Girl” teleports back to primetime Niche bassline.
When its close circle of artists venture outward, the results are dazzlingly inventive. On the same EP, Manchester prodjuicer Simmo simultaneously plays with the buzzy feedback of an aux jack on “Love Nation”, while comboing triple-kick and Baltimore kick fills with acid projectiles on “Off the Cuff”. Malachy’s “Freaky Looking MF” plays with a rubberband like the goddamn Traxmen, and don’t let the upfront cheekiness of Captain Wallop’s “Do You Like My Ass” distract you from the quiet synth bedding he sneaks in, nodding to the emotive house of Pépé Bradock.
As tech house garage crossover looks to stay, we are in the midst of a sea change in UK garage, one that is turning a large portion of its offerings into a more tempered style after years of bold colour and equally saturated production. Results are mixed, but it does offer more variety in garage sets, and a capacity for more wrist-wafters amongst the rowdy points. But labels like Swingers and Heavy Hitters truly deliver the promise of what was hinted at in the 2000s - a true meeting of stompage and swing.