OPEN (LP)

A1. "Vanishing Point"
A2. "My Everything" (feat Dekel)
A3. "Canoe"
A4. "Always Be Alone" (feat Dekel)
A5. "Fresh Haze"
A6. "Need To Forget" (feat Dekel)
B1. "A Day Off"
B2. "Love You Tomorrow" (feat Dekel)
B3. "Confetti"
B4. "Believe In You" (feat Dekel)
B5. "High & Dry"
B6. "Ripples"



Revered composer, producer, filmmaker and multi-instrumental polymath, Kutiman, presents his sixth studio album, Open, a crunchy twelve-track psych-pop trip around classic soul and Middle Eastern psychedelia, forthcoming on Siyal Music. Returning to the city, post-nine years in isolation and deep immersion in musical and self study, Kutiman connects the dots between Can, Arthur Verocai & Tame Impala, delivering a fresh reimagining of his eclectic groove-laced sound whilst reconnecting with society, embracing his roots and welcoming the unknown. As comfortable scoring orchestral suites as he is bridging sounds from Fela-inspired horn arrangements, electric era-Miles funk, classical Indian ragas, or even chopping environmental field recordings, Kutiman’s journey to his latest full-length, Open is a story of complete absorption in sonic fusions. Having achieved worldwide acclaim for his role in Netflix music documentary, Presenting Princess Shaw, alongside his Thru You projects, where he wrote new songs editing together clips of amateur musicians on YouTube, reaching ten million views in only two weeks (voted Top 50 Inventions of 2009 by Time Magazine), Kutiman has applied an impeccable attention to detail over a series of releases from 2016’s inventive “scuzzy desert epic” (The Guardian) 6am, 2020’s psychedelic feast, Wachaga and 2021’s Surface Currents, a 45min ambient outing of weightless piano drones and modular synths. Kutiman aka Ophir Kutiel moved to Tel Aviv at seventeen to study jazz at the prestigious Rimon music college, but it was a convenience store job where he first heard Parliament, Amon Tobin, trip-hop and jungle that provided his greatest musical education, and the foundation of his latest album Open. Moving back to the centre of the country, after nine remote years living in a kibbutz in the Negev Desert, Kutiman (who plays every instrument on the record) set out to balance the laid back psych funk present throughout his catalogue, with multi-instrumental techniques he acquired whilst studying in isolation. The result is a twelve-track commute into the depths of Kuti’s diverse influence base. The uptempo Vanishing Point opens proceedings, recalling both Abstract Orchestra’s 2017 Dilla tribute and lounge OST/library music flips of Tosca and DJ Vadim fame. My Everything introduces prominent guest, frequent Kutiman collaborator, old friend and lead singer of Funk’N’Stein, Dekel aka Elran Dekel, whose crooning pop vocals coupled with jangly acoustic guitar riffs (Love You Tomorrow, Need To Forget), tip to contemporary indie giants Michael Kiwanuka and Johnny Marr. A Day Off passes through Anatolian psych and Khruangbin-esque Thai funk whilst the afrobeat/jazz fusion, Confetti pays tribute to Kutiman’s other namesake, Fela Kuti. The Tuareg-leaning guitar lines on Canoe travel across the Saharan desert easterly towards Sudan and Ethiopia by the end, whilst meditative and Coltrane-adjacent album closer Ripples provides a final moment of reflection from a truly global excursion of soundscapes. As the final horn line fades into the sonic distance, Kutiman leaves listeners with little indicators as to where his path might go next. Whether that path leads him abroad or home, one thing is certain, Kutiman’s gift for infectious polyrhythmic grooves will continue onwards, upwards and outwards.