New London Music: CuT

Chris Lockie
By Chris Lockie Last edited 119 months ago
New London Music: CuT

CuT

Before you think 'typo, surely', the latest brilliant noise out of north and east London is indeed stylising itself CuT. And many better-known scions of rock journalism than Londonist have managed to overlook it, so who are we to argue?

The reliability of quotes can be questioned but we're inclined to believe that no lesser a figure than Steve Lamacq has said of CuT that they performed "the best live show I've seen in years" when he saw them, and XFM's similarly heroic John Kennedy has also hopped on the CuT bandwagon. Their Facebook page includes a picture of Gazza holding up a CuT record, but it's probably best not to ask. So what's so special?

CuT are Dan Fatel, Jay Clifton, Louie Love and Jimmy Johnson. Dan, Louie and Jay all work at Macari's music store on Denmark Street, through which they recruited Jay on bass. Dan and Jay are Hackney-based, while Louie and Jimmy are men of Camden. They make a sound described as 'space punk', packed with energetically scuzzy guitars and lo-fi vocals. It's as though the Jesus & Mary Chain were more inclined to look at the stars than angrily at each other (and CuT also contains a pair of brothers, as it happens). American garage-rock slackers Wavves have been mentioned as another comparison, accurately.

The band have put out a handful of tracks to date, including a superbly punchy tune called 'Polaroid Picture' on a gold vinyl EP a while back. Their new single, 'Time Traveller' is out on 28 April, a fantastic example of their enthusiastic style which you can check out below.

And the band will be out and about promoting the single for the next couple of months. The aforementioned Lord Kennedy of 104.9 puts on a monthly 'Remedy' night at the Tooting Tram & Social and the next instalment, on Friday 18 April, features CuT as a star turn. Six days later the band hit The Monarch in Camden, there's a Barfly gig in June (supporting fellow Londoners Whales In Cubicles) and they are also on the line-up for the new, cool-again Camden Crawl. They are not neglecting you, London.

So don't neglect them - buy the single, go to the gigs, snaffle a t-shirt, and love this band before they're so famous they send 'space punk' out of our reach.

CuT can be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Last Updated 11 April 2014