An Interview with the 'Cube Cutters'. In no particular order, Kubusschnitt are Tom Coppens (from Belgium), Ruud Heij (from Holland), Jens Peschke (from Germany) and Andy Bloyce (from the UK). For those of you with Internet access, you can find out more about the band at www.kubusschnitt.de. You can even ogle Ruud's very own "Aladdin's Gear Cave". This interview had to be conducted in a manner that makes it appear similar to an edition of "Call My Bluff". Rest assured, there will only be one 'Bluff' per question and Andy was wearing the bow tie at all times. Now, bring on the questions, Round One awaits

DL Four band members from four different countries. How on earth did you all meet and how do you manage to put an album together with such geographic problems to contend with?
TC We met through the old GoldTri mailing list where we originally launched the idea to make some web-based music (the IEM project). It soon became clear that working over the web was just not really working out, so Jens, Ruud and myself decided to do a jam together in Ruud's studio (in Utrecht), as that was geographically the easiest location, plus Ruud has the biggest setup of all of us. In less than two days we had recorded what would later surface as 'The Case'. We edited some things down and distributed some copies of the recordings for the rest of the IEM list (under the title "Who Cares - The Case of the Flying English Waterbuffalo". Yes, really!). Andy came in later to add some brilliant guitar to the mix and clean up the recording (we had recorded at really low volume by accident, so a lot of the detail was lost). Quite by accident Jens gave a copy of the CDR to Dave Law who then wanted to release it on his planned Neu Harmony CDR label. It wasn't really something we had planned, but of course it was a nice thing to happen. For the follow up, 'The Cube', we intended to get together with the four of us at Ruud's again, but unfortunately Andy couldn't make it. So we recorded some basic tracks and later edited and added new stuff in our various studios until we were all happy with it. The track 'Wormhole' went through a lot of different versions and, together with 'Hypercube', it's basically a studio track. Andy doesn't only play the guitar in Kubusschnitt by the way, he does a lot of the synth work as well.
RH It turned out that we could play together very well, so we decided that it shouldn't end with this one session ('The Case'). We also found out that a lot of people liked the music very much. I think Tom says it all quite well.
JP Belgian chocolate, Dutch Fries, Prussian discipline and English quality control make us tick.
AB Speaking personally, I like all of the above, although I normally have to pay extra for the Prussian discipline. It's interesting that you mention the geographic problem, it really hasn't been as much of a handicap as one would imagine. Obviously, the real-time contact and playing is the basis of all the music, but we are lucky that when we do meet, the results are of good quality. Preparation is all. There is a third album virtually finished. It was to be a CDR, pressed especially for the concert, but we were persuaded to hang on and issue it 'properly' at E-Live. It's a little different to the other two, mainly because of the continuous mix feel to the tracks.

DL What are the musical influences of the members of the group?
TC A lot of stuff, both old and new. I think the different views and working methods are what keep us exploring new possibilities in our music.
RH I'm mainly influenced by the oldies from Berlin. But not only Berlin School, like Schulze, TD or Hoenig (by whom I am inspired the most), but also song-based EM by Kraftwerk and Tim Blake. I also listen to Symphonic Rock, but I can't say you can hear these influences in the music. At least, not the music I do on my own. Something I also appreciate is Jungle, believe it or not. At the moment I'm doing that with someone else, although it's not something for a release. As time went on, I also came to like Dark Ambient. As a matter of fact, Jens, Tom and myself have already made some recordings in this Dark Ambient style. Jens and myself have even recorder a Dark Ambient piece with Marcel Engels. Perhaps some of it will be released some day as part of a new Kubusschnitt release. Or perhaps it will be under another name, as a new project. We'll have to see how it all goes.
JP We all share a love of traditional Berlin School. I've played electric bass, piano and synths in several bands in my youth doing Funk/Jazz/E-pop. Working with ['ramp] has also increased my interest in the darker sides of EM.
AB After finding my way to Electronic Music, I eventually became disillusioned at about the time Tangerine Dream issued "Optical Race". These two events are not unrelated. It was at this time that I moved across to listening almost exclusively to Blues and playing lead guitar in a Blues Band. That was great fun, plus it helped me to develop the calluses from Hell. No matter how much I try, I just can't seem to completely rid myself of that Blues feeling, even in my (somewhat limited) keyboard playing. I suppose I also have to admit that 'Inventions for Electric Guitar' and 'Wish You Were Here' have both had a major effect on what I tried to do with a guitar. Recently, I have found myself listening to more modern stylings. Two artists getting regular attention in my CD player at the moment are Astralasia and Delerium.

DL I get the impression that you all love creating the music you do but would it be fair to say that you only take it seriously up to a point?
JP Yes, we're only serious about taking ourselves too seriously. ;-) We love doing what we do and we're still amazed that someone actually likes our stuff!
TC We do this for fun, which doesn't mean we don't take the music itself seriously, but we don't have delusions of becoming famous or rich with it. We don't feel like we have produced classic pieces either. We enjoy it, but it's not the best thing since sliced bread. At least this keeps us on edge to constantly try and improve our musical output.
RH Having fun, playing music together with others is, in my opinion, the most important aspect of it all. What is also interesting to do is to create different sounds and sequences on these machines and then build a piece from this collection of sounds. It's like Jarre once said, "Painting with sounds", or something along these lines. I often hear that people making this music should have a philosophy. I think we don't have one and I don't think we've ever needed one either :-) Don't think that we always agree with each other, or that we do things just randomly and release all we do immediately. There most certainly is something called 'Quality Control'.
AB Speaking personally, I'm glad we all share the same views on such fundamentals as fame and fortune. I'm equally glad that we don't share exactly the same musical tastes.

DL Most people will know about Jens and Andy's "wEirD" project, but I know at least Ruud and Jens have been involved with other projects. What can you tell us about these?
RH The Patchwork project [on the Quantum label] I'm involved with is at least as important to me as my involvement in Kubusschnitt. It is something I do with someone [Rene Jansen] who is making music in a totally different direction and from another perspective. Rene composes music mainly for programs and series that are about criminal activities (really!) and as such he is very good at creating a sense of uneasiness within his sound. He also writes for documentaries. The music from Patchwork is therefore perhaps a bit darker than that Kubusschnitt make at the moment. It perhaps also has less drive in it, but Patchwork is at least different to Kubusschnitt and that's how it should be. There would be no point in sounding exactly the same, otherwise I could better put my energy into one and the same project.
JP I started working with Andy as wEirD and also worked with Ruud before Kubusschnitt saw the light of day. Some of the session material I did with Ruud is used on the Navigator project with Kent Eskildsen and Tony Anderson [Kenton Files, from Denmark]. Tom is also featured on the first Navigator CD 'Northern ConSequence' [on the Invisible Shadows label]. Andy did the quality control and mastering.

DL I believe Andy also has a career as an actor on S&M videos, what can you tell us about this? Do Kubusschnitt provide the backing music?
RH Most certainly! You don't know, but there are a even a few censored sleeves in circulation, with Andy in full view on the rear side, that were seen on the very first wEirD copies.
AB I did make a very limited version of the wEirD CD featuring some fairly 'strange' artwork, that's true. Some copies are in circulation, I can say no more.
JP I met Andy on a famous S&M mailing list entitled 'Beat me weekly, love', we found weird music helped us out of the misery a lot.