Scuba - Talk Torque

2012 is turning out to be a rather busy year for Scuba. Scuba, aka Paul Rose is one of the foremost characters in UK dance music both for his work under the Scuba moniker and his role as founder of Hot Flush Recordings. He has been very much at the centre of many of the most interesting developments in UK dance culture in the last few years.

For most of this year, he’s been going through the process of broadening his sound and expanding and challenging himself, his musical approach and his audience. Third album ‘Personality’ was a record that flipped between a number of different sounds distinct from his dubstep roots. ‘Talk Torque’ is yet another wonderful exploration of electronic dynamics that goes through Scuba’s own unique sonic filter.

‘Talk Torque’ is a techno track that takes long established sounds from dance music’s past and gives it an undeniable freshness. The beat is metronomic and immersive, rising ever so subtly before being enveloped by a crashingly euphoric crescendo. A typically cut up vocal sample of a female voice delivering the repeated lyric of ‘I’m your fantasy’ adds to the transcendent effect.

‘Talk Torque’ is perhaps Scuba’s most overtly hard edged effort but what it lacks in dubstep’s sultry soulfulness it gains in cloud bursting euphoria. It is an irresistible record.