Chris Cutler
Drums, Lyrics

A Short Bio:

Chris Cutler is predominantly known for his work with the experimental group Henry Cow, but has worked in an amazing variety of musical contexts over the last 35 years. As a drummer, his anti-virtuosic yet subtle and sophisticated style made him popular with both the progressive rock and new music fans.

Although born in Washington D.C., Chris Cutler was brought up in England and began drumming playing to the music of the Shadows and other early 60's bands. In 1966, he joined a local band, Louise, which mixed songs and "improvised electronic row". The group eventually collapsed three years later after gigging quite a bit on the London psychedelic club circuit. After the break-up of Louise, Cutler looked for another suitable outlet, but couldn't find one and, after meeting Dave Stewart (keyboard player in Egg at the time) eventually formed the Ottawa Music Company, a 26-piece composers' orchestra. "We only did about seven gigs in all. The idea of it was that a pool of musicians existed to play music that was composed ideally for them. There were about five composers I guess, and these were mostly composers who weren't in groups and whose music wasn't being heard at all, and who have subsequently just vanished. It's a great shame".

In the summer of 1971, Cutler joined Henry Cow following an ad he'd put in the Melody Maker. For a while, Henry Cow was absorbed into the Ottawa Music Company. During his 7-year stint with Henry Cow, Cutler toured almost incessantly all over Europe and recorded several studio and live albums, included two in collaboration with Slapp Happy. He also worked intermittently with Gong and both the London Philharmonic and Berlin Radio Orchestras as soloist in David Bedford's "Star's End".

It was soon after setting up the Rock In Opposition collective that Henry Cow broke up late in 1978. Chris Cutler kept working with his ex-Henry Cow colleagues, first in the Art Bears (with Fred Frith and Dagmar Krause), then in a variety of spinoff bands including News From Babel (1983-86), the Frith-Cutler improvising duo and various projects by Lindsay Cooper and Peter Blegvad.

Other projects included two other bands he co-founded, Cassiber (1982-now) and The (EC) Nudes (1993-), as well as collaborations with Aqsak Maboul (1978-80), The Residents (1979-80), The Work (1982), Duck And Cover (1983-84), Les Quatre Guitaristes De L'Apocalypso Bar (1986-90), David Thomas & The Pedestrians (1983-85), The Wooden Birds (1986), Goebbels/Müller (1987), The Kalahari Surfers (1987), Père Ubu (1987-90), Lussier/Derôme/Cutler (1988-90), Perfect Trouble (1989-90), Hail (1991-92), Between (1992), Jon Rose (1992), Biota, La 1919, Telectu, Mieku Shimuzu, etc. Cutler' most recent projects are the ensemble 'P53', with Zygmunt Krauze, Marie Goyette, Lutz Glandien and Otomo Yoshihide, and 1999's The Science Group, consisting of his lyrics and keyboardist Stevan Tickmayer's compositions, with Bob Drake contributing bass, guitar, vocals and production duties (guests include Fred Frith and Amy Denio).

Chris Cutler is known as an improviser (in many contexts), in the experimental rock world, at jazz festivals, and in the world of contemporary music. He is also known as lyricist, both for his own and other projects (When, Jon Rose, Biota, etc.). He founded and runs the independent distribution and record company RéR/Recommended in 1978, is editor of the ReR Quarterly, the New Music magazine 'unFILEd' and author of the theoretical book "File Under Popular". With the above projects and many others he has made more than 75 records and CDs and toured through Europe (East and West), the Americas (North and South) and Japan.