Track by track with Scuba
Descent
“Everyone is influenced by Blade Runner and Vangelis. This track has all those little descending slides that he uses on that soundtrack. I nicked that, wholesale. It’s all over this record, in a completely unapologetic way [laughs].
“It’s kind of an organ [mimes a descending note], which was definitely from a pack of Kontakt vintage patches. I’ve lost it, and I always curse myself for losing it, because I can’t remember what it was, and it’s all over this stuff.
“Just stuff like percussive organs, and kind of Juno-type synth patches, you know? And 101 bass-type stuff. Just all those things. Back then it was sounding great. If any readers know what it was, get in touch!”
Latch
“I remember playing this to someone at a sound check and them saying, ‘Are you happy with this?’ [laughs]. It ended up being one of the more successful tracks off the record. So, you know, what can you do?
“The producer, Martyn, was doing some really interesting stuff at the time that I was really into. And this track, although it doesn’t sound like it, is a nod to him, in the main chord.
“The beat is little field recordings. I was using a thing with a mic, just pointing it at stuff. The snare is someone hitting a lamppost or something [laughs].
“There are all kinds of ‘found sounds’ in there. Lots of the drums on the record, and little woodblock-type sounds, were done like that.”
Three Sided Shape
“It’s a key track on the album, and the most dubstep-y one… or my version of dubstep.
“One thing which is ‘of the time’ on this record is the use of sidechain. It was something that was in a lot of electronic stuff, but it was usual to use it as an effect, rather than a mixing tool.
“It wasn’t something that was typically used in the dubstep world, where you have a top line then you really side-chain it hard, off the kick.
“It was a direct nod to [the style of music in the dBridge & Instra:mental podcast] Autonomic.
“I probably sidechained pretty much everything – certainly all the reverbs, and everything sitting on top of the drums is getting caught by that sidechain effect.”
Minerals
“A lot of sounds on here are from the field recorder. With some EQing and reverbs, and digging out some of the more troublesome frequencies, and you can get some nice stuff out of it.
“What I like about the album format, generally, is that you can establish themes and then have little tangents off it. If you can keep something consistent that holds it together, like a common reverb or little motifs that recur, it gives you license to play with other stuff.
“Using found sounds and field recordings which, alone, might not fit, but using those consistencies, can smooth the path to make it a bit more coherent. There was definitely a lot of that on this track.”
“Techno was one of my first loves. When I was a teenager I spent appalling amounts on mid-’90s techno records.
“It was nice to come back to. I’d been a drum & bass DJ, a garage DJ, and flitted around lots of different genres. So, for techno to come back, in the way that it did, in what I was doing, was really nice.”
On Deck
“This is the kind of UK funky influenced one. The defining stylistic aspect of UK funky was that use of snares – that overuse of snares, basically [laughs]. It had a very straight, percussive way.
“The defining feature of garage was the fact that it was so heavily swung. And then it seemed that the way that they differentiated between UK funky and UK garage was that they just took the swing off from these tracks and then called it ‘UK funky’ [laughs].
“It literally seemed like that a lot of the time. This track was definitely from that perspective. It’s the most, you could say, ‘straight’ track on the album. In terms of how it could appear on another record from around the same time, or even before.”
Before
“This is my favourite track on the album. Even now it’s one of the ones I’m most happy with – partly because it’s extremely simple. I tend to think that the best music is extremely simple, but has a way of working.
“This is three chords, a coupla little vocal samples, and an extremely simple beat. And yet it’s quite effective [laughs]. It was the only track we made a video for from the album, so there was something in it.
“I’ve gone back to, and scratched my head, as to how it happened. It’s a difficult trick to pull off, making something that simple, and still getting that level of engagement or level of effectiveness. But, that’s the whole thing, isn’t it?”
Tracers
“This is the most garage-y thing on here. It has this big synth, string intro, which is definitely not very garage-y [laughs]. Half of the track is an intro.
“It may have been the last track I finished. For ages it was two ideas, which eventually came together as one. This kind of extending chord sequence, with the strings. And low pass synths. And those trippy... toms?
That’s definitely a CamelSpace modulation delay pattern. Whatever happened to that?
“It’s slightly more conventional drums. The 808 is all over it. And a particularly wide bassline on top. Instead of chorusing stuff, I was doubling up tracks and delaying the left or the right by 15 milliseconds. And it’s a really terrible way of doing it [laughs].”
You Got Me
“This is my other favourite track. It’s the one I played out the most. It’s the clubbiest track on the album, with the big bassline.
“Back then I rarely played out my own music – I was too scared to have anyone react to it. It’s quite a common thing. There is no worse feeling in the world than dropping something in and it being completely flat [laughs].
“I also like how the vibe of Tracers continues into the intro here. I spent quite a bit of time on the transitions between these tracks.
“And the drums here were influenced by that UK funky thing – snares once again.
“I was also really influenced by, earlier on in the 2000s, the Compost Records, and broken beat-type stuff – like Jazzanova, and the early Hospital Records.”
So You Think You’re Special
“This, and Before, were essentially just made in order to be played by dBridge and Instra:Mental on their Autonomic podcast.
“I used a budget freeware ‘room reverb’ plugin. All the ’80s sounding room reverbs are from that. You can hear it on the vocal on this track.
“The effect chain was this kind of LFO coming off the volume to give it that tremolo sound on the sample, then this room reverb on top. It’s the kind of reverb they used on those old Genesis records. I’ve always loved that whole gated room ’80s sound.
“It’s similar to Before with the simple three chords. The little melody bit, which comes in 30 seconds in, is a fairly obvious Aphex Twin nod. I’m not going to say ‘rip off’. I’m no less influenced by Selected Ambient Works than anyone else. It’s impossible not to be.”
Heavy Machinery
“This was the only bit of recording I did with an actual mic. I think I had a RØDE NT1 condenser. I just set that up in my room and hit stuff. And you can tell because it has a different sound to the rest of the album, as it has that ‘close in’ feel, which is quite a stark contrast to the feel of the rest of it.
“I think it works quite nicely. I talked before about establishing consistency. That works. But also having quite a heavy contrast here and there on a record can be quite effective, I think. That’s apparent on this track.
“The synth melodies make it consistent, helping to connect the dots between this and other tracks.”
Glance
“This is similar to Tracers, as there are two or three ideas crowbarred together. I had about 20 or 30 well-developed ideas and finished tracks for this project.
“Again, nice transition from Heavy Machinery, and lots of found sounds and big reverbs.
“Then this beat which is almost a Missy Elliot/Timberland-type thing. I was just obsessed with all of those early Missy albums. This beat is very much influenced by Timberland. I was fully into him, with that big cinematic synth chord sequence thing on top.
“It’s like a collage, I suppose. This beat is on top of a bunch of found sound collage stuff, and then this melody comes in towards the end. It’s almost an interlude, actually, in its length and function.”
Lights Out
“This was a pretty good example of what my DJ set was like at the time – going between dubstep-y stuff and kind of 4/4. And certainly the night we were running at the time was characterised by that sort of thing.
“Berlin is such a house and techno city. Back then it was very hard to get anyone to dance to anything that didn’t have a 4/4 kick on it. Coming from London that was a bit of a culture shock.
“I used the old UK garage/MJ
Cole trick of having half a 2-step track and then in the second half the 4/4 comes in.
“Bringing those two things together in focus, and making them work alongside each other. This track is that in a nutshell.”
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
To dive deep into all things Scuba, then hit up his website for all that, and more: scubaofficial.com