Caibu

Album review

Among some of the most interesting artists in the global techno landscape, Paul Rose – under his alias Scuba – pretty much ticks all the boxes for a big name: a DJ-Kicks! compilation, another for Fabric, an album for the reference label Ostgut Ton as well as numerous sets at Berghain, Berlin’s techno temple. Paul Rose, manager of the respected label Hotflush Recordings (that has spearheaded the dub-step wave in the last decade), is back for the first time since 2013 under his SCB alias. SCB showed up in autumn 2017 with the EP Below the Lines, followed within a few months by Old Media New Society and Engineered Morality. Three four-track maxi singles for a twelve-track album, Caibu, the math works out!

These tracks support the narrative of a world in ruins following a major climate disaster. A fast-approaching science-fiction scenario that pushed the English artist into deeper thinking. “I've spent a lot of time this year thinking about the paths we could be headed down over the next few decades, many of which seem to point to catastrophic scenarios […]. One of the things that interests me the most is considering the journey of consciousness that leads people down paths which subvert their own previously held political morality.” Get ready, Scuba will take you on a journey to a foreseeable apocalyptic future, and the sand-covered buildings of Mad Max, symbolised by the powerful bass on the first track, Test Tubes, will hit you right in the plexus. Bones drives right into the skeleton, while Manufactured Consent starts off with the voice of an AI before a thunderstorm of bass that must absolutely kill it on the Berghain dance-floor. The trip comes to an end with the title track, Caibu, an imaginary surgical procedure to increase one’s cognitive abilities, and at long last, you’ll find peace in Into Consciousness, which at first evokes the soundtrack of an active brain before rising again with a few ethereal keyboard strokes, symbolising the hope that everything may not always be so dark…© Smaël Bouaici / Qobuz