Scuba - A Mutual Antipathy

Decamping to Germany has had a profound affect on Paul Rose aka Scuba. Still running the prolific Hotflush and Scuba labels from his Berlin home with a little help from stateside Alex Incyde and a truly legendary international roster, this north London original has made his imprint and sound undeniably global, and the techno/minimal core of the Berlin scene has clearly opened up new possibilities, as he begins to confidently explore new pockets of sound and structure. This continually-sequenced long player is an opulent and marked digression from any standard dubstep template, and all the more brilliant for it. The expansion of classic Scuba industrial crunch and groove means his soundscapes have moved, with great fluidity, into further areas of electronica and techno embellishments, allowing the beats to shift tempo and morph patterns, creating an album that ebbs and flows seductively. Complete and assured, ‘A Mutual Antipathy’ is a true dubstep alternative; the perfect balance between Burial’s dusty emotions and Benga’s full throttle techno bass. It’s also a pretty neat encapsulation of Kode9’s assertion that, once you’ve got the rhythms and sub-basses licked, in dubstep music there are no rules to what goes on top.

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