Scuba - Triangulation

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5...according to our Brett on Fri 19 Mar, 2010.

I find Scuba a bit of a weird one. I find some of his stuff totally amazing and some of it a bit meh. Triangulation's the follow up to his first full length, A Mutual Antipathy, and for the most part I think it fits into the 'amazing' category. It's a really nice progression for his techno-influenced sound, beginning characteristically cold and stark before morphing into purer, lighter, more spacious realms for a large chunk of the record. It's almost as if you begin watching a dripping pipe deep in the bowels of some disused, long-forgotten building then gradually rise up into the sky, watching the city becoming less and oppressive as it gets ever smaller beneath you. 'On Deck' marks the shift in emphasis and is probably the standout on first listen, perhaps purely because it's the closest thing to full-on techno I've heard him do, taking that hugely percussive Shed feel and creating a track around it which can't decide whether it wants to be an all-out floor filler or a Chain Reaction-style deep listener. The beauty's in the tension! He's definitely branching out in general though, there's a fair variety in these tunes and it really makes it feel like a proper album rather than just a collection of tracks chucked together willy nilly. I'm well impressed. Oh, and it's cool that they haven't crippled the vinyl by only including two thirds of the tracks a la many other triple packs..

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Scuba, aka Paul Rose, has been at the forefront of the dubstep scene since its birth. Having founded the innovative and influential Hotflush Recordings label in 2003, he has continually brought colour and depth to an advancing genre, expanding its sonic structure and increasing its influence on the wider electronic scene. Through Scuba and seminal work by central figures including Distance, Vex’d and more recently Mount Kimbie and Joy Orbison, Hotflush remains crucial to the immediate moment and the developing future of the most exciting aspects of electronic music.

Following the first Scuba LP, A Mutual Antipathy (2008), and the more recent Aesaunic EP (2009), this album takes the Scuba sound to a new level. The collision of dubstep and techno has produced startling music from a wide range of producers in the last few years, none more than Scuba, and that has been well documented. But Triangulation moves past the dubstep/techno axis and into new territory. Working at multiple tempos, the album covers an area ranging from house to experimental drum n bass while retaining the Scuba sound that has become so distinctive.

You Got Me and So You Think You’re Special, released as an advance 12”, reflect the range of the album with the huge bass and frenetic energy of the former contrasting with the melancholic atmospheres and melodies of the latter. The listless beauty of Before, the aggressively percussive Minerals and the hyperactive electro of On Deck provide further stylistic variation, but this is not simply a collection of tracks – for the best sonic results this album should be listened to in full.

Tracklisting:

01. Descent
02. Latch
03. Three Sided Shape
04. Minerals
05. On Deck
06. Before
07. Tracers
08. You Got Me
09. So You Think You’re Special
10. Heavy Machinery
11. Glance
12. Lights Out