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Audio-visual artist CUTS announces debut album with EP and beautiful but foreboding video

October 6, 2018

CUTS
DEBUT ALBUM ‘A GRADUAL DECLINE’ OUT ON VILLAGE GREEN RECORDINGS 30TH NOVEMBER
‘A SLOW DECAY’ EP OUT NOW – HEAR IT HERE
WATCH ENVIRONMENTALLY THEMED VIDEO TO LEAD TRACK ‘A GRADUAL DECLINE’ HERE
Fed-back electronics underscored by the sinister-feeling creep of industrial percussive mechanisms” The Quietus
“The powerful build of Mogwai to the My Bloody Valentine-esque use of distortion and distant vocals” The 405
CUTS, the audio-visual project of composer and filmmaker Anthony Tombling Jr, will release his debut album ‘A Gradual Decline’ through Village Green Recordings on 30th November. Available on vinyl, CD and digitally (VGLP048/VGCD048/VGDA048), the album will be preceded by a new EP, entitled ‘A Slow Decay’, on 5th October.
Summoning 11 widescreen, electronic compositions in response to global political and environmental breakdown, ‘A Gradual Decline’ addresses the planet’s current fragility using actual field recordings of ice collapsing from glaciers. Weaving these momentary, dramatic events directly into the DNA of the music, CUTS has sculpted rhythmic elements out of geological transformation.
“We are living in the age of the Anthropocene and it feels like everything is in decline,” reflects Anthony. ”We’re in a moment where extinction is regular. I wanted this record to reflect these frailties.”
Directed by Tombling Jr. and filmed by Tombling Jr, Andre Pattenden and Vladimir Bodiroga, watch the beautiful, yet foreboding, environmentally themed video to album title track ‘A Gradual Decline’:

‘A Slow Decay’ EP track listing:
  1. A Gradual Decline
  2. Carbon
  3. Drowning
A stark sense of urgency permeates ‘A Gradual Decline’. At times chaotic and alarming, the album’s siren-like tones and volatile, stuttered beats converge with synthetic gales of melody and glacial percussion. Elsewhere, the sense of precariousness is subtler, enveloped in gaseous chords that swell and evaporate, ethereal and dense guitars and distant vocals – all hallmarks of previous CUTS material – here honed into a concise, conceptual set.
“I have tried to make a record that feels like it’s all come from one place,” explains Tombling Jr. “My only musical influence on this was William Basinski’s ‘Disintegration Loops’. Not the music, but the process. The idea of a decline in sound really suited the concept of this record. All this music and instrumentation trapped in this declining digital signal. I wanted it to sound brittle and precarious. I also wanted to avoid doing overly dark material, opting instead for something that was more fragile, melancholic and even hopeful in moments.“
CUTS signed to Village Green Recordings earlier this year and released the double EP ‘EXIST’ in April. The EP featured the track ‘Bunsen Burner’, which can be heard in the memorable climactic scene of Alex Garland’s Ivor Novello-winning, sci-fi masterpiece, ‘Ex Machina’. Tombling Jr’s composition was also used in the finale of JJ Abram’s cult TV show, ‘Person Of Interest’. Taken from the same double EP, ‘Dream Voyager’ was remixed by shoegaze legends Slowdive and Village Green label mate, Ben Chatwin.
CUTS has performed at ATP, Simple Things, Drill Festival and played with Fuck Buttons, James Holden, Haxan Cloak and Wire.
PRE-ORDER DEBUT ALBUM ‘A GRADUAL DECLINE’ HERE
www.cutsmusic.co.uk
www.instagram.com/cutsmusic/

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