Scuba - The Hope (Recondite mix)

Scuba - The Hope (Recondite mix) - 23/07 Hotflush

Hot Flush's latest release is another pretty solid Scuba remix outing, with Recondite offering up two interpretations of The Hope, the deliriously ravey cut from February this year. Rather than upping the ante, Recondite strips away the majority of Scuba's original track, retaining only the distorted voice, and filtering down the bass to a warm, resonant low end. Whilst the two reworkings are intended to conjure different time periods, named Nocturnal Car Ride and Morning Promise respectively, they're fairly similar aesthetically and channel a smoked out, deep-house vibe. Admittedly, the former focusses slightly more on the bass and the lower end, whilst the latter stretches the hi-end synths into ambient/ Kraut waves, whilst winding the percussion down to a more minimal groove.
I'm definitely more enamoured with the Nocturnal cut, but both tracks are solid DJ tools with great potential and rich sounds that will get a few good outings.

Scuba - Personality

I'm not as immediately sold on this record as I was by Triangulation, but there's a great deal of depth here, and it definitely rewards repeat listening. Scuba continues to be awesome.

"Dubstep is awful right now, truly terrible"

Red Bull Music Academy - great work, great ideas, world's shittest sponsor.

Lecture: Scuba (Madrid 2011) from Red Bull Music Academy on Vimeo.

Seriously, Red Bull is mind-bogglingly awful and a massive pet hate of mine, yet the RMBA actually has a pretty cool thing going on. I like this video with Scuba, which, despite the weird German breakfast tv setup, has a nice bit of narrative and some very interesting chat. Nice seeing Scuba opening up so much.

Interviewer: "and what did it become?"
Scuba: "A really terrible music scene"

Brilliant.

Scuba - Adrenalin

Scuba - Adrenalin (Hot Flush, 26th September)

It's no secret that Shallowrave has a bit of a thing for Scuba - as well as keeping the truly epic Hotflush record label turning out next-big-thing after next-big-thing, Paul Rose's role in bringing together the globe's different strands of bass music is second only to that of Kode9, and frankly, Aesaunic is a better single work than anything Goodman's managed. Seriously.

His latest offering, a 3-track EP on Hot Flush, once again utterly nails it; welding the broken glamour of UK garage onto a framework of purist Detroit beats and widescreen synths, it's a rich, euphoric piece of work that channels all the best bits of dub , R'n'b, techno and hip-hop into a seething dancefloor mess. Casting aside Scuba's previous propensity for cloying bass and Berghain-inflected doominess, Adrenalin occupies a weird mid-ground between Joy O and Carl Craig, with it's crisp, floaty synths, vocal samples and garagey bassline sneaking along in the background. It's dead on the money and sets the tone for two more monsters. In contrast, Never rips wholesale from the best of Afrika Bambaata, layering up that boom-bap with some gloriously rich synth lines and building a brilliantly twisted take on London garage. Closing the record, Everywhere sets up a beautiful piano riff that ultimately ends up a bit of a let down when the drums and vocal sample comes in and it gets all Prince. It's by no means a bad track, but the B-side just cries out for a dark and mangled dub, rather than a third dose of 808-driven uber-house. Good work from Scuba, and definitely his most dancefloor-centred to date.

George Fitzgerald - Don't You / SCB Remix

George Fitzgerald - Don't You / SCB Remix (Hot Flush Records)
George Fitzgerald, whose debut EP, The Let Down, neatly tied together the dominant strains of garage, bass, house and R'n'B that were big at the time, returns to Hot Flush with another cut of fractured vocals, broken beats and lush synths. To some extent, it's more of the same; there's mournful detuned vox that warp in and around the melody, skittery half-step percussion and rich synths all bundled up in warm atmospherics. Undoubtedly, this is going to get rinsed to death, especially with Scuba, the man who's A&R skills have launched Joy Orbison, Mount Kimbie and Sigha backing it, and providing a remix on the flip. But this is no monster anthem; it's the moody, richly textured version of the garage-not-garage thing that Kavsrave, J.O. and the rest are punting at the moment. Whether or not there's space in the marketplace for more of the same remains to be seen, but Fitzgerald has his own charm and energy that makes him worth looking out for. Hell, even the vocals have their own place, unlike a few too many of Orbison's tracks.
For me, though, the B-side is where it's at - Paul Rose (Scuba), under his SCB moniker careful extracts the essentials of the original and processes them into the kind of Berlin Boom-Tish that he's been espousing lately. Honestly, it's not the best thing he's done under either moniker, but nailing the synthy, purple wow-inflected garage-isms of the original onto a solid technoid template makes for a genre-smashing synthesis. Nice work.

Scuba - Triangulation Interpretations

Scuba - Triangulation Interpretations - Hot Flush
Scuba's Triangulations was a pretty special piece of work, spanning dubstep, techno, house and all the other genres that are essentially collapsing in on each other - it showcased Paul Rose's talents as a producer, and gave him space to explore previously shut-off avenues, adding new depths to his already prolific output. For that reason, this expanded version of the album, with a second CD of remixes, feels slightly redundant. It's not to say that the music on here is in any way bad or sub-standard - Deadbeat's aquatic reinvisioning of Tracers is one of his best dub tracks since the Version Immersion EP, creating a dense wall of delays and frayed, decaying samples. Similarly, Joe's spectral reinterpretation of So You Think You're Special mingles grainy, minimalist textures and murky bass with a groove-laden piano riff to great effect, whilst Deadboy turns in a garage/funky rework of Before that'll be getting cained big style very soon.
Therein lies the problem with this album - every one of the remixes is a brilliant tune in it's own right and showcases the individual artists involved. Added to Scuba's own construction, it feels tacked on and out of place. Doubtless the 12"s will be snapped up rapidly, and if you slept on picking up Triangulation the first time around, now's your chance to grab it along with an additional snapshot of the best modern bass music has to offer. But for those like myself, who loved the narrative Scuba sculpted, and were hoping for a Directors cut or extended version, this is a whole new proposition.
Definitely worth going over...

MJ Cole

Sub:stance, Scuba's Berghain night celebrated two years of breaking down barriers between Berlin 4/4 darkness and the syncopated sounds of UK urban music last month. Happy birthday and all that. We're currently really enjoying the recording of MJ Cole's set from that night - a wired jitterbug mix of dubby chords, deep house melodies and garage syncopation, it's both forward-thinking and reverential. Nice work guys.

2 Years SUBSTANCE - MJ Cole [panorama bar] by Melissa