Future Garage

Written By Kota Noel

The genre of Future Garage is so-called because it is the future of UK Garage. Its characteristic sounds are:

  • a 2-step garage rhythm with much syncopation (accenting / stressing the off-beats for groove and rhythm)

  • off beat hi hats, swung

  • drums in general play with the triplet settings, swing, and off-beat / halftime (rarely four on the floor, but it can still happen)

  • lush, deep pads

  • Reese Bass (two detuned waveforms to introduce some phase cancelation for wobble, along with distortion and filtering)

  • ethereal vocals, either in female range, or more androgynous by lowering the pitch of female vocals or raising the pitch of male vocals

  • long intro, typically 30s to 1 min., with a long bridge in the middle, and two main sections (typically a shorter outro)

  • filter sweeps to move between song sections, especially before a drop (hi passing the drums) or at the end of a verse to the bridge (hi cutting the drums)

  • moody, introspective, darker vibes — more internally focused than outward-bound

  • foley, such as scattered rimshots and other drum sounds, as well as field recording noises, like cityscapes, and often vinyl crackle as well

  • low fidelity, often hi cuts in the EQ, giving a “dusty” sound

  • often a generous amount of reverb and delay to emphasize the spacious quality

The 2-step garage pattern essentially means that the drum is not 4|4 like most club tracks, and typically is on the 1, 3, 3& (do - tsch, do-do tsch); and the snare either on the 2 and 4 but a little early (one trick is to set the grid to sixteenths and then render the snares on a triplet grid with it hitting one triplet early to the 2nd and 4th beat), or else on the third beat, as halftime, with the kick on the first beat and on 2&, and the snare on the third beat, then variation in the next bar. I said snare, but typically it is a layering of various snares and rimshots for extra crunch and hit, though in chillstep and some Russian varieties like the Pensées duo, the snare can be rather mild and rolling, though still effective.

I see a few different variations on the sound, which I collectively group and call “future garage” for want of a more official name, and because the genre and its artists as a whole are rather one collective tree with different branches, than a separate forest.

They are these:

  • The Russian variety — like Pensées, Menual, and Vacant — typically very deep and lush pads with a more heavy, thick, brooding atmosphere, but still melodic

  • The UK variety — like Bucky, such as his EP with Phelian, Close EP, in the track Step Back. This variety is more ‘dancey’, darker (more grim type of dark, reflective of the urban environment, than dark in other emotional ways), and more aligned with traditional garage drum rhythms — here it is sample selection which stands out the future from the typical garage.

  • The German variety — such as Azaleh, as well as other parts of Europe — which tends to be very melodic and more upbeat, happy.

  • The American variety, with artists such as Phelian and Direct (and myself) — tends to be more of a mix, less focus on pure garage rhythm, and by nature of culture and environment, a different soundscape than the Russian and UK varieties.

  • chillstep (more below)

There are of course exceptions — Oscuro for example is more in the chillstep scene, and is from the UK, but is much more upbeat than something like Bucky’s Meltdown. This all is not a hard classification, but rather general trends that I’ve noticed over the years, which certainly have their exceptions.

I am by no means an expert in genre, music, or music history — so, this whole post is how I have experienced the genre over time, rather than an exhaustive analysis and deep study.

I really love the genre, as you can tell by now. Before I found it, I never had a favourite genre. It just clicks for me in a way that I can hardly describe. It just feels right.

Burial seems to be the first person to really popularize the genre, with his 2007 album Untrue, with tracks such as his title track Untrue, and the equally excellent Ghost Hardware. Burial is notable (aside from the masterful flipping of samples and general dark, gritty, dusty vibe, as well as the pioneering of a genre!) in part because he did not actually use DAW (music making software, Digital Audio Workstation), but rather used Sony Sound Forge, which is not a typical music-making software. There was literally no grid for him to snap beats onto (quanitzation), hence the very organic vibe. I don’t know if he actually created the genre or not. In my opinion, I think future garage really took off in 2016-2018, with songs such as Sublab x Azaleh — For My Soul (2016); Azaleh x Eikona — By Your Side (2017); and Phelian’s Luna (2017). Pensées also generally released a lot around 2015-2018.

I mentioned chillstep earlier — as I am far from an expert in music genres, I use the terms as I understand them. Chillstep to me follows the general style and scene of future garage, but is much more upbeat. Pretty much anything by Oscuro is a great example. It’s generally happier and, well, more chill.

Then, as you go into the music by someone like the duo Pensées, you’ll find that it’s hard to classify them as strictly FG. For example, their track pinkcanyon is, to me, less FG than their track Dreaveler. In my estimation, in this scene, it is more the artists that drive the scene than it is the genre that drives the scene. Perhaps this is with all genres, I don’t have the largest music repertoire. But I mean to say, any of the artists in the genre generally listen to all the rest, and feel more at home in the difference of UK’s dark, gritty scene with Oscuro’s happier style than they would in other genres, as least as far as I can tell. I use the term Future Garage as a catch-all term for the artists and sub-styles in the same niche, rather than as a strict classification.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Tim Schaufert, Oscuro, Julien Earle, for learning purposes, and have talked a bit with Azaleh, Pensées, Phelian, and Twisted Psykie — and they are all great! All of them were helpful and kind.

Here is a list of a lot of future garage artists that I enjoy:

  • Azaleh

  • Aether

  • Phelian

  • Pensees

  • Vacant

  • Tim Schaufert

  • Menual

  • Spaceouters

  • Smokefische

  • Sublab

  • Sibewest

  • Manu Shrine (rest in peace)

  • ESSAY

  • Ennja

  • LONER

  • Kori

  • Blut own

  • VonnBoyd

  • Vesky

  • Kazukii

  • AK

  • Eikona

  • Fyze

  • Bucky

  • Inhale (formerly Insomnia)

  • aLone

  • Singular Mind

  • BRAOINEAN

  • Subsets

  • Sloati

  • nvrmore

  • Kaisaku

  • Arros

  • Kosikk

  • Nomyn

  • Sorrow

  • Twisted Psykie

  • Shah

  • Riversilvers

  • Alicks (future garageish) (also releases under Alex, if I recall correctly)

That’s definitely not a full list.

The genre to me is a soundtrack for life, in some of its moods. I really love it. If I had to pick my top three songs in the genre, they would be Phelian’s Withering Flower, and his Luna, both on his album Luna, and Pensées — She. They are all exquisite. But, that is not to diminish the other artists or tracks! There are different moods in the genre to be sure. For My Soul (Sublab x Azaleh) is quite different from Vacant’s Tell Me, from Sorrow’s Witchcraft. Tell Me is great for driving back from the gym at 4am, Witchcraft for smoking a cigar in the rain, For My Soul for feelings of love.

Here are a couple bits I wrote about the genre before,

The reason we like future garage is because the irregular rhythms remind us of our own jagged lives, seeing those with a more “normal” life and seeing how they are, contrasted with our own experience of making a groove out of whatever off-beat and jagged experiences in life we go through. 

— Kota Noel 

November 7, 2020 5:53pm

Also, it’s a production. It doesn’t feel like a mass-produced pop type of song — it’s creative, masterful, a captured emotion really well done and expressed, rather than a mediocre attempt at touching common themes as is done with many pop songs today.

— Kota Noel 

December 2nd, 2020 12:06pm

One of the reasons I love it so much is because it is genuine, authentic. You can’t get that type of sound without true craft, even mastery — it isn’t just another cliché pop song. Sure, pop songs can have genuine merit — but it can also often be the case that the lyrics are the same tired old cliché nonsense, but hey, at least the beat is great! and the autotone is there! Oiy.

If you really listen to the intricacy of the sound design in future garage, you’ll realize, especially if you’ve ever sat in a DAW before, just how much work and skill it takes to make the tracks.

I find myself still having trouble in making the genre. I have found that if I don’t necessarily focus on making a specific type of genre, but rather tune in and flow out that which comes, it is the easiest for me. Though my upcoming song Falling is the best FG I’ve made yet. As well, Twisted Psykie kindly pointed out to me, emulating artists for practice can be a great learning strategy to progress in a genre and to find your sound.

There is a slowly growing body of tutorials on Youtube, I’ll add my master playlist later. For now, the main teachers of the genre on YT are Venus Theory’s megaseries, Julien Earle, and Riversilvers.

This is the first post in the music blog, but the blog won’t only be about FG. I’ll share playlists, my own songs, and possibly other music-related things.

Kota Noel