Kutiman Biography

Ophir Kutiel (Hebrew: אופיר קותיאל‎; born 1982), professionally known as Kutiman, is an Israeli musician, composer, producer and animator. He is best known for creating the online music video project, ThruYOU, a self-titled album, and the viral on-going series "Thru the City" .

Kutiel was born in Jerusalem, Israel, and grew up in Zichron Yaacov. He commenced piano lessons at the age of six and then learned to play drums and guitar at 14 years of age. When Kutiel was 18, he moved to Tel Aviv to study jazz at Rimon Music College.

While working at a local convenience store in Tel Aviv, Israel, Kutiel discovered a college radio station that was playing genres of music that were vastly different from the classical jazz he had been accustomed to up until that point in time. Following this experience, Kutiman met Sabbo, another Israeli artist, who introduced him to Afrobeat and funk music, including the sounds of James Brown and Fela Kuti, among many others. As Kutiel's taste for music deviated from his traditional training, in 2003, Kutiman embarked on a journey to Jamaica, where he researched reggae and worked with both Stephen and Damien Marley.

Kutiman is best known for his viral video/audio mashup online album "Thru You".

In 2006, Kutiman was signed to German music label, Melting Pot Music, based in Cologne. Soon after, his first single, "No Groove Where I Come From", was released, followed by the release of the hit song "Music is Ruling My World"—a collabroation with Karolina of Habanot Nechama. Kutiman's eponymous debut album, which received an 8.2 rating from Pitchfork Media and a 7 out of 10 from PopMatters, was released in the fall of 2007. Under the Radar picked Kutiman as one of the "Artists to Watch in 2008", along with Glasvegas and MGMT. Kutiman has also won the 2010 ACUM award for producing Karolina's album, What Will I Do Now?

In the summer of 2010, Kutiman co-headlined a concert bill with DJ Shadow in Tel Aviv, performing with his live band, The Kutiman Orchestra.

In June 2012 Kutiman released a new single and video clip "Dover. D". This video, created by Kutiman, documents a street art project by Dover D. Kutiman produced this song and played all instruments featuring Elran Dekel, lead singer of Funk'n'stein, on vocals. This song was featured on Gilles Peterson's BBC Radio 6 Music show

In 2014, Kutiman was nominated for a Webby Award in the Video Remix/Mashup category for his ‘Thru Tokyo’ project, in which he created an intimate musical landscape for the city of Tokyo. He has since been commissioned by various cities such as JerusalemTel Aviv, Riga, Krakow and New York (to be released in December 2015) to create audio/visual portraits of each city’s uniqueness.

Following the success of ‘Thru You,’ Kutiman released ‘Thru You Too’ in October 2014, an online music album composed of unrelated YouTube videos. He was awarded a 2015 Webby Honoree for his work on ‘Thru You Too’. This project led to interesting international collaborations with some of the world’s most prominent producers, DJs, and musicians, birthing the creation of the ‘Thru You Remixes’. In "Thru You Remixes" 9 brilliant producers, arising from different musical genres and countries mix "Thru You". The producers participating in "Thru You Remixes" are: Garden City Movement, Mixmonster & Kalbata, Jim Dunloop & Grzly Adams, Rejoicer, Free The Robots, Red Axes, Tomgi, La Dame Noir and Copia Doble Systema.

In July 2015, Kutiman is set to release Space Cassava, a two-track vinyl featuring Kutiman's rendition of deep jazz and funk. The EP will serve as a soft launch for Kutiman's new label Siyal Music. The official launch of the label will be kicked off with the release of Kutiman's sophomore album 6AM, which is expected to be released in October 2015.