I:Cube

by Sean Cooper
French techno/house producer I:Cube (aka Nicholas Chaix), along with such artists as Air, Motorbass, and Daft Punk, was one of the most hyped underground acts on Paris resurging dance scene during 1996-97 (with the difference that, instead of the industry, it was those artists doing the hyping). Similar in some respects to his colleagues, I:Cubes near-comprehensive fusion of the range of minimal electronic dance musics — a molten concoction of funk, soul, electro, trance, Chicago house, and Detroit techno — first surfaced through the Disco Cubism single (on popular Parisian DJ Gilb-Rs Versatile label) in 1996. Made all the more amazing by the discovery that it was the work of a teenage schoolboy, the singles popularity was upped considerably by the full-length debut, Picnic Attack, which appeared the following year. Informed by a heavy dose of driving, minimal, trance-oriented techno, the album helped distinguish I:Cubes style from that of his more press-hounded countrymates (and attracted a fair amount of hounding on its own). A surprising and consistently inventive release, the album (along with Daft Punks Homework and the Sourcelab label compilations) gave considerable weight to the notion that Paris dance underground is among the least stylistically segregated around, producing innovative, compositionally accomplished music both clear in focus and broad in scope. Adore, an album that pleased the dance floor and couch heads, followed in 2000. Around the albums release he released a collaberation with DJ Gilb-R as Chateau Flight.