Dedicated to bringing you the very best in breed when it comes to dance music pedigrees, Epidemik have achieved something of a coup. For the next Capital Shakedown, we are pleased to bring you former leading lights of the garage scene - The Dreem Team

UK Garage has a changed a lot since it first broke its sound in the early 1990s. Before the splintering of the scene, before the rise of dubstep and grime, before all of the posturing and head nodding, there were the staccato rhythms and funky hooks that were affectionately called UKG.

One of the leading lights in bringing this sound to a more overt audience was the Dreem Team. Their Kiss 100 and Radio1 shows were ground central for UK Garage on commercial radio at the time, and provided an accessible yin to the pirate stations yang. Made up of Spoony, Mikee B and Timmi Magic, The Dreem Team were at the forefront of the UK garage sound, their skills as DJs and producers allowing them to bring UK garage to the masses both here and abroad, most notably on the Garage’s own version of Ibiza, the infamous Ayia Napa.

To celebrate this, and to give praise to some true pioneers within the scene, Epidemik will bring you an exclusive Dreem Team speed garage set. Speed garage was first conceived in 1995, with Armand Van Helden’s now legendary take on Sneaker Pimps’ “Spin Spin Sugar”. Welding warped, obscenely heavy basslines to speed up NY garage style 4/4 rhythms, a new wave of producers took the original concept and ramped up the pace and style dramatically.

Taking heavy influences from both jungle and reggae, speed garage tracks often included gunshot samples (187 Lockdown “Gunmen”), cut up vocal samples (Double 99 “RIP Groove”) and most importantly the all important sweeping bass, perhaps best summed up in Armand Van Helden’s remix of Tori Amos “Professional Widow” which shot to number one in 1996.

With the current revival in bassline house echoing out of such Midlands strongholds as Sheffield and Birmingham, it’s time for the Dreem Team to remind the big smoke and, more importantly, the Epidemik faithful, just how good a sound this is.