The latest talented producer to join a line of creative output emerging from Israel is Ophir Kutiel aka Kutiman. Its hard to believe that this multi instrumental musician was only recently introduced to funk and afro-psychedelia. In the short time since he has fallen in love with it and produced an interesting smart and fun album. His debut is arguably one of the most interesting one-man-band-projects around with support from all around, Jazzanova and Giles Peterson to name a few. ...show more

The latest talented producer to join a line of creative output emerging from Israel is Ophir Kutiel aka Kutiman. Its hard to believe that this multi instrumental musician was only recently introduced to funk and afro-psychedelia. In the short time since he has fallen in love with it and produced an interesting smart and fun album. His debut is arguably one of the most interesting one-man-band-projects around with support from all around, Jazzanova and Giles Peterson to name a few.

While working at a local convenience store in Tel Aviv, Kutiel discovered a college radio station that was playing music much different from the Classical-Jazz he had been used to hearing. Following this, Kutiman met Sabbo, another Israeli artist and current music partner, who introduced him to Afrobeat and Funk music. This introduction included the sounds of James Brown and Fela Kuti, among many others. As his taste for music altered from his traditional training, Kutiman embarked on a journey to Jamaica where he researched Reggae and Afrobeat and had the opportunity to work with Stephen and Damien Marley.

In the summer of 2010, Kutiman co-billed with DJ Shadow in Tel Aviv, collaborated with Maroon 5 to create a smash up YouTube video [8], and worked with Karolina to create a music video for her hit song Smile 2 Me, which was shot in 150 different locations in Tel Aviv. In 2009 Kutiman released "ThruYOU," is an online music video project mixed from samples of YouTube videos that has received more than 10 million views. Time Magazine named it one of the 50 Best Inventions of 2009. Due to the success of Thru-YOU, in October 2010 Kutiman was invited by YouTube to perform at the "YouTube Play" grand opening at Guggenheim in New York City.. ...show less