UK Garage is riding a new wave of hype and exposure, and DJ Jackum is dropping some of its defining moments and demolishing dancefloors. Context, six tracks on Hotflush Recordings, is his most substantial work to date, and it’s a great reassertion of a very British sound.

Calling this garage feels accurate but insufficient. It’s considerably harder than the glitz and glam of the 2000s, and if anything it sounds like what might have been called future garage fifteen years ago, but we’re presumably living in that future now. It reminds you of Zinc’s Crack House era, TQD and My Nu Leng, when the boundaries between house, bassline, garage and grime were extremely fluid and the most interesting music was happening in the spaces between. Much of the EP has an insistent four to the floor beat and an up-tempo energy that’s a trademark of the North of the UK, but where a lot of that kind of material can feel cluttered, Context feels spacious with room for the bass to do its work. Floo opens with a grime riff before dropping into an enormous cavernous bass line. Clip Empty follows with a grime vocal sample and deep, murky bass, and Take Your Body Higher is a curveball that hints at emotional house in the intro before dropping into a dubstep wibbler that sounds like a collaboration between Rusko and Joker, veering between a high-end wobble and big purple synths. Prang opens with a vocal sample delay straight out of Double 99’s Ripgroove before everything drops out and a familiar donk arrives, Step Up hangs suspended in the air tense and beautiful, and STFU rounds things off as a simple dance floor weapon built on sparse garage keys, groove, and a big bass line that’s clean and direct. The six tracks are also sequenced like a DJ mix, and works as a half hour listening experience with the feel of a very good underground set.