As certain strains of dance music fall into formulaic habits and stagnate, a handy trick to push things forward is recontextualising something long abandoned. Years after its mutation into dubstep, grime and bassline, garage is experiencing a renaissance of sorts.

Earlier this year, Tempa released a retrospective of legendary producer El-B; if you ever wanted to know where Burial got his characteristic shuffling drum patterns, look no further. MJ Cole has broken his production hiatus and put out some of the best funky tracks of the year. Elsewhere Zed Bias’ massive ‘Neighbourhood’ received a massively anthemic remix from number one UK funky don Roska. If you’re drawing a blank on this tune just remember “I feel good good good / I feel good yes wonderful good” and enjoy trying to get that vocal out of your head the rest of the day.

More exciting than reruns of past glories however is a new school of producers taking on the garage template and warping it with all manner of synthetic colour and futuristic, broken beat patterns. None represent this new sound more than the excellent Blunted Robots crew, comprised of brothers Brackles and Martin Kemp, bolstered by like minded partner in crime Shortstuff. A string of year conquering releases on Planet Mu, Ramp Recordings, Apple Pips, Berkane Sol and their own imprint have solidified the Blunted Robots sound; intricate, driving garage beat programming that borrow dubstep’s sub bass and add twisted, pitch bent melodies that vary from lush AFX ambience to borderline feral.

Essential releases are the Street Fighter 2 sampling Brackles 12” ‘LHC/Sutorita Faita’ and Shortstuff’s party smasher ‘A Rustling/Stuff’, but nothing to date can match the forthcoming ‘I Love London Remix’. Chopping up the original Crystal Fighters track beyond recognition, Brackles cuts up the vocal on top of constantly warping and rewinding, euphoria inducing synths and an intense rolling beat that never lets up the momentum; incredible stuff.

Simon Docherty