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Kutiman started the project by trawling the murky world of You Tube for vocalists and instrumentalists. On finding usable clips he preceded to cut up the samples into usable parts and mix them together to create new songs. If this wasn’t enough the accompanying videos of the samples have been nicely edited to provide each track with it’s own people powered music videos.

Each track has full credits with a corresponding You Tube reference. So for instance on ‘The Mother Of All Funk Chords’ the trumpet hit is credited to Trumpet Kid f1Ke39KV5AQ. Put the reference in a You Tube search and you’ll link to the original clip and it’s 11-year-old star.

This project comes in at 7 tracks kicking off with the projects most famous band member, Bernard Purdie, laying down the rhythm as a host of characters chip in with blues vocals, harmonica, bass, guitars, congas not forgetting the aforementioned trumpet kid. Amazingly the song is a full on blues funk epic, replete with a tripped out Led Zeppelin inspired theremin breakdown.

‘This Is What It Became’ is a class reggae track with all manner of dubbed out synths, sirens and melodica to accompany the skanking roots riddim. Mighty Lion lays down a great dancehall vocal and is accompanied by the worlds least likely looking Rasta extolling the benefits of marijuana.

‘I’m New’ kicks off with a killer jazzy double bass line and neat funky drums before the undisputed beauty of the project, Elexis Trinity, kicks in with a haunting vocal loop before the amusingly named Juice Lee keeps it real with his street level delivery as all manner of vintage synths and eclectic percussion keep the track rolling.

Didgeridoo, Middle Eastern vocals, percussion and instruments and yet more obscure vintage synths provide the melodies for the banging drum and bass of ‘Babylon Band’. A Shuggie Otis style basic synth riddim provides the gentle backing for the mellow soul of ‘Someday’ as a mother sings whilst cradling her young baby. ‘Wait For Me’ is more mellow soul goodness with the talkbox vocals combining wonderfully with the classical strings and keys.

The album ends with the vocal highlight as the original vocals of Songdreamer and some badly lit web cam images provide the back bone for a great soulful end to this refreshing project.

As technology advances all sorts of interesting possibilities for collaboration, willing or not, are emerging but it still takes peculiar talents like Kutiman to make sense of it all and pull the overwhelming amount of information now available to us all into creative and cohesive wholes. I’m expecting a rash of copycat projects but I doubt if any will be beating the musical quality of Kutiman for a while.

Inspired.

Thru YOU Website containing all songs and videos.