Kutiman dreamed of learning to play tabla from the source since being gifted a compilation of traditional Indian music as a teenager. Finally making it to Kolkata in 2017, Kutiman practiced twelve hours a day for two months under the tutelage of Pandit (Master) Tanmoy Bose. One of India’s greatest tabla players, Tanmoy Bose toured the world with Ravi and Anoushka Shankar.

Destined to smash post-pandemic dancefloors, “Guruji'' begins with looping sitar and a halftime tabla rhythm, before a cascade of synth-played motifs rain down, centered around a droning bass synth. Working with similar sounds, “Majan” takes a much more relaxed approach, creating a reflective, psychedelic and cinematic answer to “Guruji”.

Recorded in his isolated bunker in the Negev desert, musical nomad Kutiman draws from a deep well of aural reconstructions collected over lifelong musical plimages around the world. The psychotropic sounds of “Guruji” and “Majan” designate brand new territory for the prolific multi-instrumentalist and producer. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Learning that Kutiman spent 12 years a day for two months learning tabla is both outstanding, terrifying and inspiring at once. The results, presented here show that anything is indeed possible with time and dedication.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Guruji (3:55)
Side 2
1. Majan (3:19)

Following their sublime 2019 collaboration, “Sakla Beni”, production king Kutiman and Turkish songstress Melike Sahin reunite on Anatolian psych anthem, “Elmi Tut (Hold My Hand)”. And a simple revival this is not. The Turkish & Middle Eastern psych sound of Erkin Koray, Baris Manco, Selda Bağcan, Omar Khorshid & Aris San is brought bang up to date with swathes of hallucinatory synths, filtered basslines, hard-as-nail drum breaks and Kutiman’s magic touch. Having met in Istanbul in 2017, Şahin and Kutiman rapidly developed a beautiful chemistry.

Şahin’s striking voice inspired Kutiman to create a genuine yet modern Anatolian psych sound and the resulting 2019 single, “Sakla Beni”, became a global hit, championed by BBC Radio 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne. Meanwhile, the modern Anatolian sounds of bands such as the Netherlands-based Altın Gün and the contemporary Middle Eastern-influenced psych of Khruangbin, have taken the world by storm. Kutiman and Şahin’s follow-up is destined to win even more hearts! About Kutiman & Melike Sahin Israeli-born Ophir Kutiel, aka Kutiman, is a composer, producer, multi-instrumentalist and video-artist, famed for his heavy modern grooves and online, video-based music projects.

Fluent in multiple instruments since childhood, Kutiel’s musical passions evolved from jazz to reggae, afrobeat, funk and psych from all around the world. His 2009 “Thru You” online music video, built entirely from samples of YouTube videos was soon viewed 10 million times, turning Kutiman into a Guggenheimcommissioned, household name. His recent album ‘Wachaga’ was highly lauded by the likes of Uncut, Sunday Times and BBC 6Music. Hailing from Istanbul, Melike Şahin came to prominence as a member of cult Turkish psychedelic band BaBa ZuLa, with whom she toured over 40 countries.

Described as "Turkey’s most beloved alternative music purveyors”, they collaborated with Mad Professor, CAN’s Jaki Liebezeit and Sly & Robbie. Launching her solo career three years ago, she has worked closely with venerated film director, Tony Gatlif, recording songs for ‘Djam’, and performed at the Cannes Film Festival for its world premiere. Şahin has scored a number of national hits with Sony Turkey and is working on her debut album.

TRACK LISTING

A. Elimi Tut
B. Elimi Tut Karaoke

For fans of Khruangbin, Tom Misch & Yussef Dayes, Kamasi Washington, Strut Records, Analog Africa & Soundway.

New eagerly awaited LP from the maverick Kutiman, based on field recordings he made in Tanzania of local musicians, then manipulated, layered and expanded in his home studio. A one of a kind opportunity for a musical trip to the motherland, through the eyes, ears and heart of one of the most fascinating and adventurous musicians in contemporary music.

People have been living around the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro for millennia. One day in 2014 another jeep pulled up, in a rural neighbourhood where many people from the Wachaga nation live, work and play. This jeep contained Ophir ‘Kutiman’ Kutiel, the producer, multi-instrumentalist and filmmaker who is get-stopped-in-the-supermarket famous in his home country despite being terminally shy of the spotlight.

Kutiman carried microphones, video recording equipment and a request for creative collaboration to Tanzania – and he left Wachaga with a set of recordings. Some of these were of everyday sounds and some contained special sounds: school children from the city of Arusha playing drums or the dancers who wore bells to add a percussive element to the movement, like the metal plate in a tap dancer’s shoe.

This fourth studio album is a combination of the material he collected on his 2014 trip with recordings made with saxophonist Shlomi Alon, trumpeter Sefi Zisling and trombonist Yair Slutzki, alongside his own playing and studio wizardry. He was listening to a lot of spiritual jazz during the recording, and in a departure from his usual cut and paste style, played on top of the recordings.

It’s a creative push that has paid off: Horns and synth melodies spiral across borrowed rhythm patterns and chants which provide the bedrock around which Kutiman builds his own musical dwelling, creating new pathways of jazz, psychedelia and circular meditative zone-outs.

Returning home from his trip to the self-organised kibbutz community where he lives in the western Negev desert, he began dipping into the recordings to see how he could use them as a starting point for his own musical and visual explorations.

Fast forward six years, and we have ‘Wachaga’, an audiovisual feast which contains nine tracks and nine kaleidoscopic video pieces, named after the 2.4 million Tanzanians who live mostly on the southern and eastern sides of Mount Kilimanjaro.

He made the video strand of the release over a couple of years. The films are trippy and hypnotic, reflecting the emotions he felt while recording the music. They’re made using vintage analogue techniques and gear including a rare 1980s Fairlight CVI video synthesiser, a Videonics equaliser and a Panasonic mx50 video mixer.

Kutiman might be well-known at home but he’s also internet-famous thanks to his million+ viewed ThruYou series ("Top 50 Inventions of 2009" by Time Magazine) which edited together samples of bedroom YouTube videos from around the world and his Mix The City platform.

He’s well known to music heads for his 2007 eponymous debut, 2016’s ‘6am’ and 2018’s ‘Don’t Hold Onto The Clouds’ alongside co-signs by the likes of Maribou State who featured one of his tracks on the most recent Fabric Live mix or the modern classical solo album he made for Greenpeace last year.

Following the huge buzz built around his Anatolian rock collaboration with Turkish singer Melike Sahin in 2019 ('Sakle Beni'), and the critically acclaimed limited edition 7” record featuring the warm and brassy middle eastern ‘Saluf’ and percussive slow burner ‘Badawee’ was released in February, and another psychedelic jazz-funk EP called 'Layla' was released in April to rave reviews and support from Peter Kruder, John Gomez, Bradley Zero, Dom Servini and Toshio Matsuura to name a few.

Kutiman is now in one of the greatest artistic peaks of his diverse career and Wachagga is the first in a string of releases, which explore Kutiman’s singular vision through a variety of musical lens including melodic techno, ambient electronica and sweeping, motorik jazz. 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Tanzania
A2. Awake In The Rain
A3. Maasai
A4. Lost In The Bush
B1. Fireflys Before Tomorrow
B2. A Giant Snail
B3. Rainbow Kilimanjaro
B4. Copasavana
B5. Ngorongoro

Fourth release on Kutiman's own record label Siyal Music. In the era of the brand, Kutiman is an anomaly. A musician who’s a video artist who’s a producer who’s an animator who’s also the unwilling star of one of Israel’s most successful recent documentaries, his every record contrasts with whatever it was that came before. But that’s fundamental to his appeal: no one, not even him, really knows what to expect next. Unsurprisingly, therefore, Don’t Hold On To The Clouds is no different, which means it’s like nothing he’s ever done. Most artists would acknowledge this by working under pseudonyms, but Kutiman is – yes, you’ve guessed it – different again. Kutiman’s upcoming LP Don’t Hold On To The Clouds is comprised of just four tracks -- the shortest of which, ‘Lucid dream’, still clocks in at almost eight minutes - it orbits within reach of, among other styles, Ambient, Electronica, Minimal and New Age, but refuses to settle on merely one. The A-Side features the airy ‘Behind the noise’ and ‘Unknown’, reeling the listener into a deep and meditation. Flip it over to the B-Side and you’ll find ‘Mineral’ and ‘Lucid dream’ inducing an ethereal state. This new record is unusual to Kutiman’s typical style, revealing his love for the sounds of Terry Reilly, Moondog, Alice Coltrane and William Basinski. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Behind The Noise 10:40
2. Unknown 08:21
3. Mineral 09:41
4. Lucid Dream 07:40