Source: Clair Cantrell (Underground Press 14 June 2009)

Cut Out Collective

We have all had them – those days when life seems too hard to handle. Those existential crisis days where the only thing that is going to make you feel f**king alive is music with balls.
So there I was, in exactly as I have described – what is it all about? Where does it all come from? Why are we here? These things can never be answered with just clarity.

“Enough is proverbially enough”, as they say and I had promised a friend I would do this for her, long stories about calls from Saudi Arabia one doesn’t have a gap to take, and so a friend steps up to the plate and helps – so, so much for existential crisis’s, the promise has to be filled, and a review will damn well be written.

What joy, what fun and what a band! Existential crisis? What existential crisis? I have been inoculated!

The Cutout Collective are one of those bands that can make you feel good if you are prepared to open your mind and take the sensory assault for what it is – and it does make you feel damn fine.

I normally don’t like to review on only three songs off a sampler c.d, this particular one entitled – Eponymous by the Cutout Collective – but hell these guys have the ability to say in one song what the rest take three albums to say.

This band is danceable and lively – with its dark undertones and clever synths (that have no baring on being a hippy) Cutout Collective will appeal to any music taste, and to anyone who likes schizophrenic, challenging (for lack of better term) dance music – a mix of four on the floor and great rhythms. If you like music that has a good solid beat, interesting lyrics and clever arrangements this is for you. The mix is amazing! It is punky and dark and happy and emotional with a message to boot. I have a policy – if you are not on my iPod you do not exist – Cutout Collective landed up being loaded on Larry faster than you can say well, “Cutout Collective”.

Go back a couple of years and think about Dead or Alive’s- ‘you spin me right round’ and Kraftwerk’s ‘Antenna’ and you will have an idea of what you are looking at with Cutout Collective just a couple of years on in music evolution. Mix the two tracks in your head and you have a chance at the gauging Cutout Collective.

I will best describe Cutout Collective by saying – the Cutout Collective is like an angel crashing down to earth with burning wings, accompanied by a chorus of crazy music, the kind of music that lets you look forward to your flight downhill.
Tim Apter and Jason Hartford are responsible for the music, recording and production on the album. Tim takes credit for the lyrics. Jason also takes credit along with Chris Brink when it comes to mixing of the album. Lapdust mastering facility mastered the album. Lapdust are responsible for a host of great South African artists’ music mastering, and Cutout Collective come to the party with whistles and bangs – they don’t fail in their duty. Dan Flikker also did a really good job on, and I quote “everything you see”.

Cutout Collective make you want to tear the walls down and lay in the debris patting yourself on the back as they say to you – “do do do do what you do, sah sah sah say the right things, you know the feeling is there because you want it to sting, do do do do what you do, sah sah sah say the right thing”.

Isn’t that the perfect solution for an existential crisis? Hey and even if you aren’t plagued by existence and are looking to hear some kick a** music, that is seriously ground breaking in South Africa, music that sticks in your head like a well written jingle, go get it! Sweet Lard go get it. I promise this band is better than the Vodacom jingle – says she while lighting the Molotov cocktail.

Well done deconstruction recordings! This is one for the books.

Thanks: Clair Cantrell