Cubic drops 808 Dot Pop rework album ‘Back To 808’ on Alfa Matrix
Cubic
One of our favourite minimal electro acts, the Belgian electronic project Cubic of Franky Deblomme, has just released the album “Back To 808” via Alfa Matrix. The 11-track release reshapes Cubic’s 2024 album “Back To Basic” through 808 Dot Pop’s Passenger S. The album is out as a download and on CD, plus of course as streaming on all platforms.
Note that Passenger S returns the favour here to his fellow label mate. In March 2021, shortly after releasing his debut EP on Alfa Matrix, Deblomme collaborated with Passenger S by reshaping 808 Dot Pop material into the album “The Cubic Temperature,” also positioned as a cross-project reinterpretation rather than a standard remix package.
A few weeks ago, Deblomme already released the “EFM02” EP – a digital follow-up to the sold-out vinyl release “EFM01”. Issued first on Bandcamp, this seven-track collection connects directly to the aesthetic introduced on the recently released album “Back to Basic“, which today is out as a reworked version.
The band’s sound sits in the Düsseldorf electro tradition we know best from Kraftwerk, built around rigid 4/4 pulse, sequenced patterns, and machine-timed percussion. We have in the past described it as “hardware synths, drum machines, and fx paired with relentless basslines, vocoder voices, and 4/4 kicks.” It’s no surprise that there are explicit references to 808 drums and “Kraftwerk percussions.”
The sound of the project clearly leans into early home-computer culture through titles and sound design choices, including a Speak & Spell vocal part on “Computer Alphabet.”
On “Back To Basic,” there was a clear link to the early electro and techno lineage of Anthony Rother, Dopplereffect, and Cybotron as touchstones for the album’s classic electro sound. Our very own reviewer, Inferno Sound Diaries, called the porject’s approach a “signature ‘robotic’ music concept” and wrote that “Kraftwerk’s influence is omnipresent,” while noting harder EBM traces that tied to Deblomme’s earlier project Darkmen. He also flagged dance and techno ingredients, including “flat basslines” compared to Mr. Oizo and “sampling typical of the ’90s.”
About Cubic (and 808 Dot Pop)
Cubic is the Belgian electronic project of Franky Deblomme. He previously worked in the Belgian EBM project Darkmen. Deblomme began working with Alfa Matrix in 2021, starting with the EP “Alphabet Hymn” released in March 2021. Later the same month, Deblomme collaborated with Passenger S by reshaping 808 Dot Pop material into the album “The Cubic Temperature.”
The debut album “The Cubic Alphabet” followed in June 2021 via Alfa Matrix, then continued that release cycle with the EP “Phonic Lessons Part 3” in December 2021. In 2022, Deblomme expanded into a location-themed series with “Exit: Frankfurt” (April 2022), “Exit: Ghent” (June 2022), and “Exit: Manchester” (September 2022). In December 2022, we also saw Deblomme as a remixer on the charity single “Ukraina,” alongside other acts.
Ahead of the later album phase, the project returned with the EP “c64” in September 2023 and followed with “c128” later in 2023, as teasers toward a full-length album. That album, “Back To Basic,” arrived in May 2024 via Alfa Matrix in digital and CD editions. The 2025 release “Back To 808” connects directly to that album by handing the source material to Passenger S of 808 Dot Pop for a full rework concept. Passenger S is also one half of the duo in the vintage synthpop project Metroland.
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