Last month Cutline gave us the awesome Love That I Feel, a house-tempered stomp towards the sunnier months galvanised by big emotional synth flickers… We are definitely feeling the love!
As their sound continues to morph and mutate in all sorts of exciting ways, we thought it would be interesting for them to wind back the years and reflect over their previous conquests. With nine UKF uploads, there’s a lot to reflect on, most notably, their return to their electro house roots.
“The problem with Cutline is that we’re a multi-genre act and always have been,” states Jeryl, one-half of the Bristol-based production unit. “This means we can do what we like, but it also means people can’t quite pin us down to any particular scene.”
“If you look at the people who are killing it on a multi-genre tip – Sub Focus, Chase & Status, Noisia,” interjects Dan, the other half of Cutline. “They all came from one particular genre. We’ve not had that, and I think it confuses some people.”
Jeryl continues… “We actually started making electro house in 2008 under a different name. Whatever style we’ve done, though, one consistency has always been our love for trancey sounds and big hooks.”
“Yeah, there’s also always been a Beauty and the Beast dynamic to our music, i.e. beautiful breakdowns followed by filthy drops” concludes Dan.
Let’s have a look over these beautiful beasts in more detail, shall we?
Die For You (ShockOne Remix)
Uploaded: July 2010
Dan: Die For You was our first ever official release. Basically we’d been really inspired by Sub Focus’s Could This Be Real and wanted to do something in that vein. We’re always in admiration of Nick’s production and wanted to get that same type of clean feeling to all of our music. We still aspire to that now.
Jeryl: Never Say Die was such a great label for us to release our debut single on. They had a lot of faith in what we were doing and gave us a lot of support.
Dan: I remember SKiSM saying it was one of the best demos he’d heard in a long time. Obviously as our first single that gave us a massive boost!
Jeryl: We were also really happy when ShockOne agreed to remix the track. We had been fans of his music for a long time and as you can see, he absolutely smashed it!
Let Me Go
Uploaded: December 2010
Jeryl: We still get asked to play this at our shows. We’ve not played it for a few years now. It’s funny with early tunes because you move on and continue to progress but you don’t know what impact they’re having at the time. We bumped into Koven at Fabric a while ago and he told us he used to listen to it on repeat. Funny story… It’s actually Dan on vocals!
Dan: I still love elements of the track (not my vocals), especially the end of phrase bass just before the drop, but the track as a whole is very of its time. That brutal electro bass sound that people like Chase & Status were really nailing in 2008/9… We’ve all moved on now. Still it was a big record for us and we love that people still feel so strongly about it.
The Prototypes – Cascade (Cutline Remix)
Uploaded: December 2010
Jeryl: I remember getting a text from Luke (UKF founder) at 3am one night saying ‘Andy C’s just played your tune and rewound it!’
Dan: He was playing it for over year. I’ve heard he still occasionally pulls it out now!
Jeryl: This remix was such a great opportunity for us: working with a drum & bass label we really respected and an act we really liked. We couldn’t have asked for more at this early stage of our career!
Alive
Uploaded: July 2011
Jeryl: This was an exclusive for a UKF compilation. I think the intro is still one of the best intros we’ve ever done!
Dan: The album had a very tight deadline. I was like ‘shit!’ I don’t think we really had a chance to fine tune the drop as much as I wanted. We love the track but it feels a bit unfinished to me.
Jeryl: Would we return to it? We’ve considered it, but you have to ask yourself whether it fits in with what you’re doing now. To be honest we’ve moved away from that sound quite a lot, so it wouldn’t feel right to go back to it right now, but never say never.
Running
Uploaded: November 2011
Dan: This was our first vocal collaboration. I remember going into the studio not really knowing what to expect or how to do it! It was a bit daunting.
Jeryl: It’s one of those mad situations when you don’t really know someone but you’ve got to sit in a room and be creative with them. Sometimes that can be really awkward, but other times it’s great and fun… This definitely falls in the latter category. Belle was really cool and a joy to do our first big vocal collaboration with.
Ayah Marar – Mind Controller (Cutline Remix)
Uploaded: January 2012
Dan: This is one of the biggest things we’ve done. Everyone was playing it!
Jeryl: Those vocals are so good! We’ve known Ayah for a long time. She’s fantastic to work with and incredibly talented.
Fleur & Cutline – Broken Mirror
Uploaded: August 2012
Jeryl: Fleur was such a joy to work with! We both fell in love with her straight away. She managed to keep up with our boyish banter which, after over two decades of friendship, has matured into something quite “special”. Fleur’s such an amazing singer; so chilled out and open to ideas. She absolutely smashed it on this one.
Dan: We actually played this for the very first time at the UKF arena at NASS Festival. People instantly had their hands up as though they knew it already. It was one of those really special moments.
Punx Soundcheck – Heavy Medication (Ft FERAL is KINKY) (Cutline Remix)
Uploaded: December 2012
Jeryl: This was a cool track to remix. FERAL has such a wicked style. This tune was a big turning point for us in getting back to our electro house roots.
Dan: We get a lot of people saying ‘why aren’t you doing dubstep anymore?’ but we started with electro house and just ended up diversifying a lot. Don’t worry though, we still love writing at 140, so I’m sure we’ll come back to it.
Love That I Feel
Uploaded: February 2014
Jeryl: We love the mixture of deep house and big room vibes on this one. We originally did a more cut up electro house style drop on this, but when we were playing it out people seemed to love the breakdown, but weren’t really into the drop. They were, however, loving the drops of our more stompy tunes like Crack It and our remix of Wilkinson’s Afterglow, so we decided to go more down that route. We’re really pleased with how it’s turned out and we’ve had a tonne of great feedback on it.
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