The London-based House & Garage Orchestra put a fresh spin on U.K. garage classics of the early 2000s, performing them entirely organically with a full live band, horns, and a string section. Conceived in 2015, the band was the brainchild of production duo A.I. (Audio Intuition), consisting of DJs Shy Cookie (Alex Mercier) and Ormshi (Ishmael Hamilton). Mercier had been instrumental in the formation of the UKG sound "back in the day" in his work with DJ Luck & MC Neat, but, feeling he was not receiving the recognition he deserved, had quit producing in 2004 to set up a studio. He became interested in live performance and began toying with the idea of performing garage music with a full live band. After teaming up with Ormshi, a promoter and old friend who had recently begun producing, he set about making the dream a reality, recruiting talented session players to create the House & Garage Orchestra. The band debuted on Rinse FM in 2016 and began to tour shortly thereafter. Their live performances were incredibly popular, and they were soon being booked to perform at events, festivals, clubs, and parties. The full live band brought a whole new dimension to the classic dance music tracks and made explicit UKG's links with R&B, soul, and jazz. While the outfit wrote and played original music, the big draw was their covers of UKG classics, which they would never perform without the original vocalists on board -- such as MC Neat ("A Little Bit of Luck"), Sweet Female Attitude ("Flowers"), and Camden Cox (MJ Cole's "Sincere"). After a sold-out U.K. tour of major venues and theaters in 2018, they released their debut album, Garage Classics, at the end of that year. ~ John D. Buchanan