Why London's clubbers are going back to the Garage

Someone call Craig David: the sound that defined London in the Nineties is back, and it's taking clubs by storm.

The garage revival has been on people's lips for a while now but it's recently become impossible to ignore the number of DJs slipping classic garage into their sets.

The nod of approval from London's most discerning clubbers came last year as garage began to play out in clubs from Dalston Superstore to Plan B in Brixton.

The defining moment, however, came on Valentine's Day, when Jamie xx - an influential producer and member of band The xx - recorded an achingly cool set of garage classics at Corsica Studios in Elephant and Castle. The return to the sound, whose most memorable hits include Artful Dodger's Re-Rewind and So Solid Crew's 21 Seconds, is actually a lot more natural than it might appear.

At the turn of the millennium, a bass-heavy genre called dubstep was evolving out of 2-step garage.

Fast forward a decade, and dubstep has moved on.

A new breed of DJs and producers have emerged, who play electronic music with a mixture of styles that has been coined post-dubstep. The influence of garage on these producers cannot be underestimated.

Artists such as Burial and Joy O, for instance, borrow heavily from the genre. James Blake, poster boy for the post-dubstep movement, is signed to Hessle Audio, a label that represents a rich seam of 2-step garage producers such as Pangaea. The sound has gone full circle.

Of course, its most discerning fans will argue that garage never went away in the first place.

Ollie Rant, 23, is a garage DJ who plays at Dalston Superstore and other clubs around London.

He says: "It seems like an obvious choice of music to play for a certain generation. If you were into it the first time around it can conjure up pretty sentimental memories."

With east London's notoriously fickle hipsters driving the trend forwards, though, is this renewed appreciation of cheesy garage classics all just a big joke?

Not according to Rant, who lives in Tower Hamlets. "For most of us, using irony as a buffer to enjoy UK garage is way too much effort; most people are there because they love it."