DESCRIPTION:
Label: InFiné
Catalog #: iF3028
Format: CD, Digital
Country: France
Released: May 26th, 2014
Genre: Techno

Cesar Urbina leads a double life but with a single pseudonym: Cubenx.

From under his techno cape, he has produced a handful of releases that have enveloped dancefloors in luxuriant sound design and translucent kick drums. And yet, when he picks up his guitar his songs are inspired as much by English post-punk and shoegaze as shamanic cults. It's no easy matter maintaining this ambiguity in a branch of music that likes things instantly recognisable and clearly categorised. It's even tougher when your own label encourages you not to respect any format.

Recorded in his studio in Berlin this winter (the same one frequented by Rone and Clara Moto), the four tracks on "Mercurial" are Cubenx's last ditch effort to reconcile his demons. Far from painful listening, the EP flows effortlessly from track to track, like the chapters of a good novel - classy and addictive. Title track "Mercurial" is the one that should get radios buzzing, with a baseline that comes in like a hypnotic metronome before crystallising on an androgynous, deliciously nostalgic chorus of Cyane Quijano. On "First Wave Front" the roll of a snare drum carries us away into ghostlike echoes and dampened keyboard layers. A few minutes later, Cubenx ventures into melancholic dub with the superb electronic ballad "Saunter". And finishing things off, with both robotic and emotional touches, "Parvada Nocturna" once again propels Cubenx to peak hour on any discerning dancefloor.