Fewer recordings in life demand repeated listens less than lackluster mix tapes. When the only value the arrangement provides is the context of its creator, well, you had better hope that the beat-matching and editing maestro responsible for your 90 minutes of life has some sort of personality that transcends the mediocre and the meh. Enter Scuba (a.k.a. Paul Rose) and SUB:STANCE. SUB:STANCE is Rose’s ‘experiment’ in bringing the heavies of UK bass and synth music (Kode 9, Joker, Boxcutter) to Berlin’s notoriously, uh, “uninhibited” nightclub, Berghain, an establishment more renowned for sweaty and shirtless 80-hour marathon dancing than the sort of bleak alleyways and 4:12 AM döner kebaps that dubstep seems to inspire. This mix is an attempt to merge the UK’s grimy headspaces with Berlin’s Elektronische Körper-Musik. It’s neither exclusively a dub CD nor a techno one, but something that seems to recognize, albeit with restraint and at times an absence of hooks, the more ambient qualities of bassy British soundscapes and Burial-isms.
Having never been to Berghain (someone sponsor my ass already), I can’t attest as to how successful this mix is at capturing the vibe of Rose’s SUB:STANCE night, but this collection is just barely good enough for dancing in the vicinity of other people. I’m reminded of that scene in Midnight Cowboy, where Jon Voigt and Brenda Vaccaro are playing Scrabble instead of fucking, except that they eventually get around to erupting in orgasmic napalm; this mix just kinda goes to half-heartedly masturbate in the bathroom at its part-time coffee shop gig. However, it does succeed as a loner headphones record, with enough “gloom lite” to engineer any number of late-night study sessions or grant-application binges without depressing you too much about having chosen grad school instead of actually making money.
For better or worse, relatively few deviations (excitements, perhaps?) from the overall pulse keep things flowing and regular. Two Sigha tracks get off to a slow, swirly start, and Pangaea’s “Sunset Yellow” is the first significant peak. Rose’s mix draws heavy from his Hotflush Recordings roster, and it ultimately comes across as a series of quick glimpses at many similar-sounding singles advertising such. The truth is that none of the tracks really get a chance to exhale or occupy any sort of space, and they all kind of glom together as a result. Some of the funkier tracks, like James Blake’s remix of Mount Kimbie’s “Maybes,” have actual fun moments, but they never get off the ground. The advantage to this, and indeed a redeeming quality of the mix, is that you are free to study the minute differences between tracks, like the simulated respirator hiss on Badawi’s “Anlan 7” or the sawtooth decay of Joker’s synth.
Now, this would be cool if it were a demo CD to test out a factory stereo in my hypothetical new car (again, would-be sponsors, get in touch) and if my test drive included a late-night highway stretch: plenty to think about, for someone with a long drive, a scenario for which this mix would be quite appropriate. In the context of this mix and its allegiances to the Ostgut and Berghain names, dubstep has been stripped of its swagger and attitude, only to be packaged for situational consumption. I have to say that Kompakt (who’s distributing this, by the way) has done a better job in the past at arranging their own singles collections.
Unfortunately, this mix seems to suggest that, in 2010, dubstep and other bass- and synth-heavy electronic musics are the new punk/club/urban ambient of industry nights and $2 you-call-its. What should be a synthesis of techno’s four-on-the-floor infinity and contemporary dub’s nihilistic stumble fog — triumphant, erotic shadows and bursting pocket vibrations, if you will — never materializes, and Scuba’s mix is relegated to intelligent background music that never truly exceeds the sum of its parts.