Cubanate was an english industrial band from London, founded in 1992 by Marc Heal and Graham Rayner with Phil Barry and Steve Etheridge. It’s well known for its early fusion of distorted heavy metal guitars and techno percussion (later incorporating breakbeats).

Shortly afterwards having played their first UK tour in November 1992, the group signed to Berlin’s Dynamica Records. Rayner and Etheridge departed after the first Machinery single, Body Burn (1993). The pair were replaced by Julian Beeston (ex-drummer of the Nitzer Ebb).

In May 1994 the Metal EP was Single of the Week in Melody Maker magazine and later that year Cubanate received media attention when they were weirdly paired with Carcass for what turned out to be a notoriously violent UK tour ending in death threats to Heal and an on-air confrontation on the Radio One Rock Show with Bruce Dickinson.

The second album Cyberia (1994) spawned the hit single Oxyacetylene, generally considered Cubanate’s creative peak.

Their third album, Barbarossa (1996), started to let the band be associated to The Prodigy, so the group decided to change their format in their fourth album, Interference (1998). This one was a departure from Cubanate’s earlier techno experiments with a strong drum and bass influence that alienated some of their traditionalist fans but was heralded as revelatory by others, but it proved to be the band’s last official full-lenght album.

After a decade of silence, in 2007 a torrent appeared on the Internet with nine leaked demo tracks recorded by Heal in 2000 titled Search Engine. Featuring such tracks as Razor Edge, Superstructure, and Drowning Hands, the material had been abandoned by Heal in 2000.

In October 2010 the band announced that they were recording again and would be releasing new material in 2011, but in a post on his Facebook page dated 13 September 2011, Marc Heal stated: “Marc here. I should have posted this a while back, but I wanted to let everyone know that I have decided conclusively not to do another Cubanate album. It was a real blast getting back into studio with Phil – and he came up with some brilliant music. But I’m doing something different with my life now and I’ve come to the conclusion to leave it. Thanks for all your support, I really appreciate it. I’ll keep posting. M”.

Both Heal and Barry have released solo work since that announcement.

In 2016 Marc Heal and Phil Barry reunited the band toghether with Vince McAley (variously from Dead on TV, GoFight and Die Warzau) to play at the Cold Waves Festival (an annual Industrial Music Festival held in Chicago, Illinois).

In 2017 Cubanate released a compilation album titled “Brutalism” via Armalyte Industries, featuring 14 remastered songs from Cubanate’s first three albums.