CUBANATE RETURN WITH NEW EP

Cubanate are to release their first new music in two decades next month.

The industrial techno duo put out the EP ‘Kolossus’ through Armalyte on June 7.  It features five new tracks, plus remixes of the title song by both Rhys Fulber and DROWND. And the band are to play Elektrowerkz in London on June 1.

These days vocalist Marc Heal lives in San Francisco, while guitarist Phil Barry is in Cambridgeshire, which makes recording a little tough, as the former explains: “Of course, these days you can send each other files, swap ideas across email instantly. But that’s not it. You start to realise that ‘being in a band’ is actually about sharing a vision and indeed a method of working. That’s much easier when you’re hanging out together, seeing other bands, sharing inspiration. All that stuff is easier when you’re younger, I think. However, we decided that we were definitely, absolutely going to release something. Whatever we came up with, it was going out. It was the only way, otherwise we’d have been noodling around for another 20 years. We decided that an EP would be a manageable target.

“I set up a vocal booth in Palo Alto and sketched out the ideas. Phil took them forwards in Cambridge and added guitar. Once I heard that I added some more vocals and tweaked the structure before he then finished the mixes. We’re pleased with the results but I feel we will get stronger now we’ve done these five tracks. It’s a psychological barrier. The EP still sounds like us but inevitably we’re older and hopefully wiser. The wisdom thing is tricky, because a lot of early Cubanate was about relishing a ride towards self-destruction. It’s still like that, but smarter. These days we’re more confident that we can do whatever we want, both musically and lyrically. So long as it keeps being fun and we think we can keep being nasty, we’ll keep doing it.”