7×7×7

By JonMichael Rasmus, Sean Weitner, and Andy Yingst

This diagramless cryptic takes place on the surface of a cube, shown below unfolded. Entries are clued in lettered “bands” which go across or down, and when an entry extends past the edge of one face, it continues onto the next, or back to the beginning of its band. Clues for each band are given in order, but between entries may be any number of bars. The beginning location of the first entry in each band is shown.

As an aid to placement, bars on the interior of each face of the cube have rotational symmetry. This rule does not apply to the edges between faces. Some cells will be completely surrounded by bars: they should be shaded in as blocks.

The four entries in band O are musical acts. Songs from these may be found in bands A and K (two each), and the [B2] shared by these songs reveals the true nature of this grid.

Some tips:

• You can always put a bar before the first entry in each band, which will allow you to place a second rotationally symmetric bar on the same face—unless the bar before the entry is on the edge of the face. (So putting the bar before the first entry in band B will let you infer another bar below the cell labeled J, but putting the bar before the first entry in band A doesn’t immediately let you infer anything.)

• Once you’ve solved the first entry in a band, you can put a bar after the end of its entry, which, if not on an edge, will let you infer another bar.

• When you’ve solved and placed two consecutive entries in a band with space between them, then that intermediate space must be filled with bars.

• Bars won't interrupt entries. Just as how placing bars may let you infer more bars, you can use places where bars don’t go to infer more places where bars don’t go (and hence where answers must go).

Add/remove horizontal bars with '_', vertical bars with '|', and blocks with the space bar.