''Cut 4 Me'' is the debut
mixtape
A mixtape (alternatively mix-tape, mix tape or mixed tape) is a compilation of music, typically from multiple sources, recorded onto a medium. With origins in the 1980s, the term normally describes a homemade compilation of music onto a cassette ...
by American singer and songwriter
Kelela
Kelela Mizanekristos ( am, ከለላ ሚዛነክርስቶስ; born June 3, 1983) is an American singer. She made her debut in the music industry with the release of her 2013 mixtape ''Cut 4 Me.'' In 2015, she released ''Hallucinogen'', an EP ...
. It was released on October 1, 2013, by Fade to Mind for free download on
SoundCloud
SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming se ...
. Seeking to make the mixtape sound like a
remix album
A remix album is an album consisting of remixes or rerecorded versions of an artist's earlier released material. The first act who employed the format was American singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson (''Aerial Pandemonium Ballet'', 1971). As of 2007 ...
, Kelela sung over instrumental tracks by producers from the Fade to Mind and
Night Slugs
Night Slugs is an English electronic music record label, established in 2010 by Alex Sushon (also known as Bok Bok) and James Connolly (also known as L-Vis 1990).
History
Night Slugs was originally started as a London-based club night by DJs/ ...
record labels,
whose sound has been described as "one of the most distinctive sounds in UK
dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded danc ...
, a mutable hybrid of
grime
Grime may refer to:
* Dirt, in the form of black, ingrained dust
* Grime (music genre), a genre of music
* ''Grime'' (album), a 2001 album by Iniquity
* ''Grime'' (video game), a 2021 Metroidvania video game
* "Grime", a 2022 song by Dallas Woo ...
,
house
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...
,
electro,
R&B,
techno
Techno is a genre of electronic dance music (EDM) which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempo often varying between 120 and 150 beats per minute (bpm). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often ch ...
,
hip hop, and
dubstep
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken be ...
."
A deluxe edition featuring a new interlude and eight new remixes by the Fade to Mind and Night Slugs producers was released on April 6, 2015 on
CD,
vinyl
Vinyl may refer to:
Chemistry
* Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer
* Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation
* Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry
* Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl m ...
and
digital download.
Composition
''
Time Out London
''Time Out'' is a global magazine published by Time Out Group. ''Time Out'' started as a London-only publication in 1968 and has expanded its editorial recommendations to 328 cities in 58 countries worldwide.
In 2012, the London edition becam ...
'' characterized the mixtape as "future R&B."
Similarly, ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' described it as "
twisted R&B," adding that "the songs are twisted both sonically – warping 90s R&B melodies with club beats – and emotionally, thanks to her ability to undercut mainstream pop tropes like love and seduction with such dark devotion you get the sense she's singing from a bush outside her ex-boyfriend's house."
''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' compared Kelela to
Aaliyah
Aaliyah Dana Haughton (; January 16, 1979 – August 25, 2001) was an American singer and actress. She has been credited for helping to redefine contemporary R&B, pop and hip hop, earning her the nicknames the "Princess of R&B" and " ...
, while calling the mixtape "bubbly club music of the early 1990s."
''
Exclaim!
''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...
'' called the mixtape is "a credible cohesion of '90s house-ish sounds and soul."
''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
''s Douglas Wolk noted that the mixtape "is built on the half-time beats and unsettling negative-space arrangements of the "bass music" collectives Night Slugs and Fade to Mind. It's forbidding stuff, but it meshes with the sweet '90s R&B inflections of Kelela's singing."
''The Line of Best Fit'' stated that the mixtape "pushed R&B to its limits by injecting it with
UK bass
UK bass, also called bass music, is club music that emerged in the United Kingdom during the mid-2000s under the influence of diverse genres such as house, grime, dubstep, UK garage, R&B, and UK funky. The term "UK bass" came into use as artist ...
, grime and techno."
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
said the mixtape is "predominantly
electronic
Electronic may refer to:
*Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor
* ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal
*Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device
*Electronic co ...
and progressive R&B."
Critical reception
At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the mixtape received an average score of 81, based on 6 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
''
Fact
A fact is a datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance, which, if accepted as true and proven true, allows a logical conclusion to be reached on a true–false evaluation. Standard reference works are often used to check facts. Scient ...
'' stated that "there is nothing about ''Cut 4 Me'' that doesn't challenge the listener's expectations of what R&B can be in 2013 and beyond."
Given their "Best New Music" label, ''
Pitchfork
A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves.
The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...
'' said the mixtape "is an ambitiously catchy record as well as being an aesthetically ambitious one."
CMJ
CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events and online media company, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music Monthly'' and ''CMJ New Music Report''. Th ...
said the mixtape is a collection "of flawlessly crafted R&B pop gems, squeezed dry of any sonic excess that tends to signal uncertainty."
Calling the mixtape "excellent", ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' said, "across 13 tracks Kelela travels from angered to paranoid, horny to high. She will sound fine, then terrible, then merely quite unhappy until finally, for a while at least, she sounds at peace," adding that "the next 12 months are undoubtably going to be awash with a similar structure of falsettos, surreal beats and eerie minimalism. But let's not forget: Kelela's Cut 4 Me did it first, and almost certainly did it best."
''
Spin
Spin or spinning most often refers to:
* Spinning (textiles), the creation of yarn or thread by twisting fibers together, traditionally by hand spinning
* Spin, the rotation of an object around a central axis
* Spin (propaganda), an intentionally b ...
'' said "there's been no shortage of hazily hi-tech R&B over the past couple of years, but none of it sounds as eerie or as ominous as Kelela's does. The music is full of hulking, square-wave bass lines, digital chimes, desiccated claps, and jagged rhythms; synth leads waver queasily around their target pitch, and open-fifth harmonies suggest a faintly Asian air."
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...
said "Kelela fulfills her desire to make what resembles a remix album," but added that unlike most remix albums, "there's never any sense of a disconnect between the music and the vocals. Kelela's expressive and athletic voice easily slithers between and coasts over the beats."
Accolades
Track listing
Release history
References
External links
*
{{Authority control
2013 mixtape albums
Kelela albums
Compilation albums by American artists
Contemporary R&B compilation albums
Electronic compilation albums
Albums produced by Jam City