[Hotflush Recordings]

It’s almost silly that Paul Rose would go make a house/techno alias (somewhat) different from his well-established one. Lately Scuba’s productions would be more readily categorized as techno than dubstep anyway, even though his wide range of tempos and blend of styles comes out genre-less anyway. After the sublimely subterranean debut of the SCB moniker remixing his own “Hard Boiled,” the SCB project developed further with one of the mixes of 2009: the 37th mix in the mnml ssgs mix series. Kicking off a new series of catalog numbers on Hotflush, Scuba now looks to firmly plant the SCB flag with the succinctly titled SCB001.

Awash with the delayed sounds of pencils falling and paper rustling, “20_4” sounds like an inevitable storm in the distance, the black skies closing in on the clear parts above. With a straight 4/4 kick in place solemn chords radiate throughout, providing tiny hints of color amidst the gloomy grays. On the other side is “3_5,” a much brighter contrast to the cloudy “20_4.” Scuba’s first priority is still the bass and the low frequencies still bite, but up top is a swirl of luminous synths and filtered white noise. It may seem a bit singleminded next to Scuba’s highly-varied, forthcoming Triangulation album, but the first SCB record is aimed squarely at DJs’ record bags, where it will no doubt see plenty of action. It would never be mistaken as anything other than the work of Rose, but those in the techno community who have yet to embrace his work will surely find plenty to love in SCB001.