Speed Garage?! Something in Armand Van Helden's 1996 remix of CJ Bolland's "Sugar Is Sweeter" made you know it was going to have an influence beyond its four dance-floor minutes: that pitched-up "oh sugar daddy oh sugar daddy oh sugar daddy" sample. The lack of drummy breakdown. The time-stretched vocals. That rumbling sub-bass stolen from the jungle jump-up. The fact that it was New York hard house but sounded much different than anything kicking around the old Tribal catalogue. Van Helden, along with other lesser-known American producers Todd Edward and Smack, are now seen as spiritual fathers to a new kind of suitably ridiculous British house called speed garage, street garage, raggage, gangsta garage or ghetto garage. A carte blanche for confusion, its roots are as difficult to suss out as its name. One hypothesis is that the music--something you've probably heard at one of Montreal's larger afterhours--could stem from the "chill out" backrooms of suburban London's hardcore jungle raves. There DJs would play what the Brits call "garage" (energetic vocal house), but pitched up to satiate the crowd already jacked on 170 bpm. No surprise, then, that speed garage's first home is Essex. At nights like Tuff Jam's Nice n' Ripe, tunes like Rosie Gaines's "Closer Than Close" have been giving punters the frenzied cram of jungle (dub plates, rewinds) and the dancy "class" of house. Speed garage comes at a time when "dumber" hard dance (happy hardcore, jump-up jungle) is getting more respect, so the chin-stroking of the "deep" camps probably won't make it near the door. And, yes, some of it is real cheese. But a lot of it sounds very new. Which at this point is something special in the world of house. Remember: Drum & bass began as speedy crap music, too. Maybe this is the start of another glorious morph? * * * Copyright Liberation Front: Highly illegal mixed tape of the week! Sase One and Gnat tag team on four turntables for Don't Fake the Break, a true party-rocking mixie. Tons of Sase's scratching, only two trainwrecks, and the inclusion of SL2's "Way in My Brain." Comes with a potato in a sack. "Because potatoes are down to earth, but likable," says Gnat. Er, okay. At Disquivel, 842-1607.