La Vie en Cubizm

Nicolas Chaix grew up in Paris during the 1980s, immersed in the eclectic programming of the city's free radio stations. Aligre, Libertaire, Nova, FG — these stations played Art of Noise alongside early hip-hop, new wave next to nascent house music. The young Chaix absorbed it all, armed with a cheap Casio mini sampler, trying to replicate the sounds that poured from his radio.

By his teenage years, he was a regular at Paris's burgeoning rave and free party scene, spending Saturday afternoons at public libraries filling bags with CDs and records to sample from, then retreating to his parents' house to experiment. He recorded straight to tape — naive, spontaneous, free. Some of that early material, he later reflected, might be the best music he ever made.

Everything changed when he sent a demo cassette to Gilbert Cohen, known as Gilb'R, who was programming at Radio Nova. The cassette came with a photocopied picture of a building and an arrow pointing at it: "Yeah, I'm living here." Gilb'R played the tape and was amazed. In the summer of 1996, he launched Versatile Records with I:Cube's Disco Cubizm as the label's very first release — a record that came backed with a remix by an up-and-coming duo called Daft Punk.

Nearly three decades later, I:Cube remains one of French electronic music's most respected and understated figures. He has never chased trends, never sought mainstream fame, and has stayed true to Versatile Records for his entire career. He is cited as a key influence by at least half of France's electronic producers, yet remains, as Resident Advisor put it, "Paris's low-key house luminary."

In 2013–2014, he held a prestigious residency at the Villa Medici in Rome, using the time to step back from the DJ circuit and explore new composition techniques. The experience profoundly shaped his later work, leading to the improvised hardware sessions of the Cubo Live Sessions and his 2023 return album Eye Cube — his most personal and emotional record to date.