Hello Speed Garage, bye bye drum 'n' bass. While it may not be as sound-bite friendly as that, the updating of the traditional dance genre known as Garage into something a bit more dynamic and a bit more here-and-now has made the new, improved Garage into something of a dance floor phenomenon.

With big (and getting bigger) names in the UK like Tuff Jam, Amira, Baffled and Tim Deluxe leading the charge with their brand of funky four-four music, a recent release of the latest, greatest, up-to-datest Speed Garage tunes on a new big-selling compilation album, and the better sort of dance clubs going the Speed Garage route, many feel that the new sound will become the dominant means of dance music expression in 1988.

To those still struggling with terms like techno, House, ambient and drum 'n' bass, console yourselves with the fact that Speed Garage is just the latest musical innovation in the ever-shifting sands of popular music. Since dance music broke - and broke big - in the mid-to-late 1980s, it has constantly shifted its terms of reference and adjusted its verticals and horizontals to suit rapidly changing fashions and sensibilities. When techno became a bit too gabba and just a bit too much like an industrial noise, the soothing and calming sounds of ambient stepped in to fill the breach (for a few weeks - or so it seemed). And when House itself became a bit too formulaic, the black urban sound of drum 'n' bass jumped on to the front covers of the style magazines as artists such as Goldie and Roni Size brought what was once a minority, underground, sound into a mainstream whose ideas of dance music didn't begin and end with M People.

Although as British (in fact, South London) as drum 'n' bass, Speed Garage has its roots in the US, where the original Garage sound, as perfected by Roger Sanchez and Kerri Chandler, was a four to the floor beat with a soulful disco diva vocal on top. Always one of the strongest and most popular forms of dance music (it had lyrics!) it soon waned and all but buckled under the dynamic pressure of drum 'n' bass. Speed Garage, by contrast, is a contemporary London sound which took the basic template of Garage, speeded up the beats, dashed on a few dabs of reggae (fatter basslines) and used more Ragga-type (Jamaican rap, basically) vocals. Leading Speed Garage exponent Matt Jam Lamont, from Tuff Jam, says of the genre's genesis; "The Americans are the originators of Garage. They're more soulful, they've got the best disco diva vocalists and they've got a musical element. But over here we're putting in a harder sound, a stronger drum pattern, turning up the bassline a little. All we're doing is learning from the Americans - we've got a lot of respect for them. But Speed, or UK Garage, is stronger and more uplifting."

Proof positive that Speed Garage is fit to take its place alongside trip-hop and drum 'n' bass is the attendant "life-style" factor. In keeping with social and demographic changes, the people who go to Speed Garage clubs are not the E'd up kids of tabloid myth. Champagne (yes, champagne) is the drug of choice these days and the Speed Garage look is far from the baggy House look of yore - designer suits are the order of the day (and night).

Surely some media hype is involved somewhere along the line - after all, only a few months ago this type of music was variously being called Gangsta Garage or Plus-8 (a reference to the speeded-up pitch the records are played at). "First it was called Underground Garage," says Lamont, "but because it seems to be going more commercial we call it UK Garage or Speed Garage."

"Speed or Underground Garage is basically London's reappraisal of the original Garage sound," says Dublin DJ/journalist Donal Scannell. "The beats are more frantic, there's more reggae in there as well as small amounts of acid jazz.

`It's strange, but you've got people like Bette Midler making a comeback with Speed Garage simply because her type of vocals really suit the genre. There have already been Speed Garage nights in Ireland. A DJ called Aidan Kelly plays a lot of it, amongst other styles of music, and he plays at a club called Holy Cow which is at Dublin's Mean Fiddler every Saturday night - and there's also Warren K. "I don't think it's a case of Speed Garage in any sense replacing drum 'n' bass; I think it's more that genres come and go and these days, tend to co-exist rather than one `replacing' the other. To date, the record sales haven't really justified the claims being made on behalf of Speed Garage - but it's still new and that could change. Also, it is a `cutting edge' type of music, so how far it will penetrate the mainstream is anybody's guess. But certainly it belongs in the same lineage as techno, House and drum 'n' bass."

Already Speed Garage has at least one dance floor anthem it can boast about, in the shape and sound of Armand Van Helden's remix of Spin Spin Sugar by The Sneaker Pimps. Alongside that you can throw in Rosie Gaines's (an ex-Prince protegee) I Surrender, Livin' Large's Feel Free and Scott Garcia's It's A London Thing. Complete with knowing references to Speed Garage's roots, all these tracks cover the full range of underground grooves and are as muscular, resonant and accelerated as anything thrown up by Goldie. Most importantly, they bring syncopated dance music to somewhere it has never been before - and that is the raison d'etre of the seemingly unstoppable dance floor rise of Speed Garage.

In a musical culture which is very much in a post-rock phase, everything and every style is on the table and up for grabs - with mixing, matching and merging being the modus operandi. Just as the Massive Attacks and the Roni Sizes all ushered in new musical forms by pushing the parameters and upping the "originality" ante, the torch has now been passed over to the Speed Garage merchants. Their 15 minutes starts now.

Maximum Speed: Underground House And Garage Mix is a recently-released double CD compilation on the Virgin label of what's what and who's who in the world of Speed Garage.