Once again proving that he has a handle on what makes the dance floor tick like few others at present, The Hope serves as a tantalising amuse-bouche for Scuba's forthcoming new album, Personality. The first half of "The Hope" is taken up by one of those cocky, swaggering, spoken house vocals that X-Press 2 were so good at pulling off—"Got the camera, got the zinc, teenage girls, got the taste, got the sex, got the system"—atop snapping percussion and a growling Gat Decor-ish bassline. Then, at the midway point, it whooshes off out of the troposphere, as frantic future acid meets prog rock synths and a rotor-blade rhythm. It's a track that revels in its gargantuan scale.
It's backed with a non-album track, "Flash Addict," that's patently a legacy of Scuba's Berghain residency. This is music to be devoured at 4 AM, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the like-minded in the middle of the dance floor. Its main feature is something that sounds like a thousand empty milk bottles being channeled through a sorting machine, to which is added elephantine synth stabs, water droplets and warm jets of fuzziness. It's proof that Scuba is adept at creating a mood, without sounding moody.
Buy Scuba - The Hope at
  
Tracklist: Scuba - The Hope
 A The Hope
B Flash Addict
| 
