Who is Kutiman? Born Ophir Kutiel in 1982. A songwriter, musician, producer, orchestra leader, mixologist and video artist. He is many things to many people. Carrier of the Afrobeat torch, cosmic funk producer, YouTube sensation.. The list goes on. 

Launching his recording career in 2007 with a single and album on Meltingpot Music, his deep funk meets Afrobeat influenced sound immediately found fans with everyone from Gilles Peterson, XLR8R, The Fader, DJ Magazine, and Pitchfork, who awarded his debut an incredible 8.2, to the seminal Straight No Chaser, who hailed him as a “psychedelic space funk architect”.

Even if you weren’t paying too much attention, you could hardly miss what came next. In 2009, searching for ideas after his first album, Kutiel had his eureka moment. Whilst flicking through YouTube,  he came across a brilliant. drumming video, followed by video guide to downloading from YouTube. Inspired, he began downloading amateur music recordings, cutting, splicing and mixing parts until he uploaded a full song to YouTube, simply called “ThruYou”.

“ThruYou” amassed an incredible ten million views in only two weeks, and was later named one of  “50 Best Inventions of 2009” by Time Magazine. Kutiel received praise for his video editing artistry and requests to collaborate from superstars such as Moby and Maroon 5, and received commissions from the British Council, Ballantines, and the Eurovision song contest no less.

This initial success spurred Kutiel on to record a whole album of audiovisual alchemy in 2014,  featuring the hit song “Give It Up”. The star of that song would become the star of documentary, ‘Presenting Princess Shaw’, which told the story of her song with Kutiman. Premiered with great success at the Toronto International Film Festival, it was then picked up by Participant Media and Magnolia Pictures.

In 2015, Kutiman took another brave new step, launching his own label, Siyal Music, with experimental jazz-funk LP titled ‘Space Cassava’. With hints of Fela, Sun Ra and Morricone, the mini-album re-established Kutiel as next-level producer, able to arrange, record, mix and edit recordings with excellent musicians, into cutting edge productions that vibrated on another level. 

Kutiman built on the success of ‘Space Cassava’ with his full length ‘6 AM’ album, blending Middle Eastern, African and further forgotten sounds with elements of psychedelic rock, electronica, soul, folk and jazz into “a scuzzy desert epic” (The Guardian). A great success, the album was championed across the BBC Radio 6 Music and beyond, with support from Tom Ravenscroft, Don Letts & Huey Morgan.

That same year, Kutiman would return to his audiovisual work, premiering his “Off Grid” masterpiece at his first exhibit at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. “Off Grid” is a 38 minutes collage of over a hundred video clips that create a fascinating and challenging work of free psychedelic jazz. At the exhibit, the work was deconstructed into the channels that compose it. “Off Grid” would go on to show at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco July 2017.



2017 saw Kutiman release a cosmic funk 7” vinyl hit titled “White Monkey”, the third official release on Siyal Music. Again, it picked up support from 6 Music, and tastemakers such as Dom Servini. 

After releasing ‘Don’t Hold Into The Clouds’, which combines minimal electronica with ambient techno, a commision from Greenpeace International provided Kutiman with the opportunity to explore his love of ambient soundscapes, drone music and new age atmospherics even further. On ‘Antartica’, Kutiel soundtracks the icy continent with a unique blend of spiritual jazz, modern classical motifs and ambient music.

2020 has been Kutiman’s busiest year to date, with the full-length critically acclaimed album ‘Wachaga’. Born from an invitation to collaborate in Tanzania it was supported by Uncut, The Wire, and across 6 Music by the likes of Gilles Peterson, Jamie Culluam and Tom Ravenscrof. In the same year he also shared the ‘Layla’ EP, taking Kutiman back to his funk-jazz roots, a live digital only EP with recordings of the all-star Kutiman Orchestra band, the ‘Saluf’ single, a showcase for gravely desert funk and psych rock, championed by 6 Music’s Gideon Coe, two new Anatolian rock singles, with Turkish singer Melike Şahin and and Israeli singer Shai Tsabari and most recently the debut release of his Hibiscus tro with Elran Dekel and Brauner Kinrot, exploring Thai jazz and molam dub


Before the end of this year, Siyal will release ‘Wachanga in Dub’, as Kutiman revisits his favourite cuts from ‘Wachanga’ and tweaks them into the next dimension.


Known for his relentless exploration of new styles and genres, Kutiman fuses Ambient with Electronica, Minimal and New Age in 'Don't Hold Onto the Clouds', resulting in highly atmospheric, Peaceful Cinematic arrangements.

Kutiman

Ambient

Cinematic

Electronic

Don't Hold Onto the Clouds

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