Orange County in Southern California is known for sunshine, beaches, surfers and, um, dubstep? Although the O.C.’s bucolic environs don’t normally conjure bass-bin rattling club tracks, a new producer is out to challenge regional and genre conventions.

This fresh face, whose first name is Christine (last name unknown), produces tracks as Vaccine, with several tunes, including “Wishful Thinking” and “Breathless,” having been released on forward-thinking UK imprint Hotflush Recordings. With an album in the works, Vaccine will also drop a new DJ mix, available as a free download March 31 at Hotflush’s website.

A self-described Skinny Puppy and Portishead fan, Vaccine’s recordings blend jittery electronic elements with gothic ambient nuances and dubstep’s bass-led bottom end. While her mainly male dubstep cohorts’ songs lurch and stomp, Vaccine’s music drifts and shimmers via subtle melodies and echoed vocals. Her constructions aren’t necessarily main floor rave fodder, but rather, comedown music for a 6 a.m. all-back-to-mine.

That’s not to pigeonhole Vaccine as merely a gentile, feminine composer–her tracks can also unleash the demons. But at a time when dubstep’s expansion is marked by dancefloor technicians such as Skream, Benga, and Rusko, artists like Burial, Scuba, or Vaccine expand the music’s possibilities.

Similarly, Vaccine’s HFMX001 selection showcases dubstep’s more leftfield, electronic-tinged tracks. Her own tune, “Fever,” appears in two forms: the crushing half-step original and a previously unheard version, which closes the mix with paranoid synths and claustrophobic drums.

HFMX001 will be available in two formats: 192-kbps MP3 stream, and as a direct download package with artwork and individual 320-kbps MP3 tracks for easy CD burning.

Hotflush Recordings Presents HFMX001–Vaccine Tracklisting
00:00 Scuba “Tell Her”
04:07 Brain “Martial Love”
07:18 Toasty “Angel” (Si Begg remix)
10:43 Vaccine “Fever”
14:07 Clipse feat. Pharrell “Mr. Me Too” (bootleg)
16:30 Si Begg “Hard Like Funk” (Motor City dub)
19:55 TRG & Dub U “Losing Marbles”
23:33 Vaccine “Concussion”
26:44 Ital Tek “Weave”
29:55 Scuba “Hard Boiled”
33:19 Intex Systems “Radium”
35:20 Boxcutter “Infraviolet”
39:24 Vaccine “Wishful Thinking” VIP (ambient mix)
39:36 Esthero “My Torture”
42:35 Boxcutter “Philly”
46:07 Boxcutter “Brood”
49:17 Vaccine “Fever” (high grade mix)