The first new music in two decades from an older and wiser Cubanate

The techno-industrial rock duo Cubanate just announced their first new music in two decades.

The new EP is called “Kolossus” and comes out on June 7, followed by a few live gigs – including one at Wave Gotik Treffen. “Kolossus” features five new songs, plus remixes of the title track by Rhys Fulber and DROWND.

Marc Heal and guitarist Phil Barry now live on different continents, with Marc in San Francisco, USA and Phil in Cambridgeshire, UK. But they started talking about making new material after their initial comeback shows. Marc:

- That’s more difficult than it sounds. Of course, these days you can send each other files, swap ideas across email instantly. But that’s not it. You start to realize 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.

He explains the process:

- 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, when 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.

You can pre-order the EP at their bandcamp page. Listen to a track below: