How does C.U.T.E. decide which tracks will be on a release? testing them at gigs, or a different method?
Martin: Up until now, the choice of songs has always been really easy for us. Usually there are only a few songs that we leave off of an album because they just don’t fit with the rest of the songs. In those cases, though, we always put together a single or an EP for them. To not release a finished and recorded song doesn’t really make any sense to us. There are so many people out there, and every single one of them has their own different taste in music, so we figure that every song will appeal to someone out there.
Your last release, The Sirens Sound was a great success, what’s next?
Chris: We already had new songs written right after the release of “Find A Place To Be Safe”, so that we could get to work on the next album. The album could be released as early as the beginning of next year. In any case we will release the album when we find a label that gives us the opportunity to officially release it in the states. Incidentally, an unreleased song of ours will be released at the end of the year on the next “Emo Diarie 12″ sampler from Deep Elm Recods. This is our greatest success thus far toward making ourselves better known in the states. Going forth, we are planning a split EP with our friends “Mooncake” from Russia to be released beginning of next year; each band will have 2 unreleased songs on the album.

So we have plenty of work to do…
Post Rock generates creative (and often lengthy) band and track names, how does C.U.T.E. come up with these?
Chris: In 2007, when we made the decision to make instrumental music, we spent many months searching for a band name with a specific message- like a lot of bands do. The idea came from my girlfriend who suggested the sweet-sounding name “Cute” to us. We felt that the name was unfitting for a Post-Rock band… But we just got caught up in the idea. We always liked double meanings, so we started looking for a name that would have the acronym C.U.T.E. And we came up with our name one year before the worldwide economic crisis started.
The obligatory digital media question: We all know that digital downloads (legal or not) are changing the music business, would you say this is a challenge or an opportunity, and why?
Martin: We see these changes as a very good opportunity for young, up-and-coming bands, since it’s so easy to produce an album and release it yourself. In any case, it worked out that way for us. Everything that we released up until now was something we did with our own hands, so to speak. Self promotion has never been as easy as it is now. You need only to search for contact addresses on the internet and send a few friendly emails with an MP3 download link attached. The power of blogs that offer illegal, free downloads shouldn’t be underestimated either. It’s too bad that many people don’t pay for those downloads, but thanks to them, name recognition also goes up a lot faster. I don’t believe that we would have attracted the international attention that we have if we weren’t listed on so many of these blogs.
What inspires C.U.T.E. to continue creating music?
Chris: Music has played a huge role in our lives for a long time, both as listeners and as musicians. With our music, we try to take our listeners on a sort of journey that they can immerse themselves in for a short moment. We always look for new ways to express ourselves musically. That’s why we know we’ll be making music for a long time to come.