Urbs & Cutex are a duo from Vienna specialising in laid-back instrumental music that combines classic East Coast Hip Hop with elements of Triphop and Downtempo. Both started out as DJs in the early 90s making their first steps in production separately before connecting to form what is considered one of the defining groups out of Vienna’s rich electronic scene of the period. The two albums released in the early 2000s are being rediscovered by new generations of listeners and have accumulated millions of plays on various streaming platforms.
After a hiatus of almost a quarter of a century Vienna´s beat maestros Urbs & Cutex return with what is is effectively their first ever rap song featuring New York MC T.R.A.C. (of Visioneers fame). Continuing exactly where they left 22 years earlier “Wherever You Are” sets the mood perfectly – a smooth yet uplifting party anthem for all the headz and a perfect appetizer for their upcoming album “On Our Way”.
It’s been 22 years since the last record – are you the laziest group in music history?
Urbs: Haha, yeah probably! But actually it took us just 9 months to finish this whole album, so that’s speed of light compared to our usual tempo. I’ve made three albums and a few singles in the meantime and produced zillions of edits and remixes and even albums by other groups, and Cutex has been quite busy, too.
Cutex: It would be easy to churn out beats every day, because there’s no shortage of sounds or ideas, but there’s no urgency to get on the assembly line. We rather want to create music that is as slow and sustainable as an old Volkswagen. A calm, hobbyist approach can help with that. Anyway, after a break that long producing together was fun again.
So why release a new Urbs & Cutex record now?
U: In all those years I’ve always kept a folder called “Urbs&Cutex” and constantly filled it with ideas, samples and loops that fitted our sound. Because given our naivety and limited skills at the time I still find it quite remarkable we managed to establish a distinctive style for ourselves on those early albums. I like to compare it to the way Larry David dresses – it’s not particularly haute couture, but it’s undeniably a style.
C: As with the first two albums, we wanted to produce a sound that doesn’t exist in this form and that we ourselves would love to have on our turntables.
Has your working method changed in those two decades?
U: Yes and no. It still always starts with a loop – what happens with that loop along the way has evolved a little bit. Back then we considered our albums DJ fodder, so the songs were kind of repetitive, you were supposed to create some variety by spinning two copies of the record. But they became popular as they were and they were even played on the radio – something we never expected.We worked on Atari running Cubase and an E-mu sampler back then. Nowadays it mostly happens in the box and you don’t have to worry about sampling time anymore, so of course that’s a huge jump in flexibility. You have to manage that sea of possibilities well if you want to retain a certain style, especially if it’s as minimalistic as our style was.
C: Today’s digital capabilities make it much easier to search and edit material. Last but not least, the use of AI has been very helpful. It allows samples to be used in more diverse ways, and less-than-good recordings can be repaired quickly.
What were your influences back then and what are your influences now?
U: I hope I don’t repeat myself, but production-wise our biggest influence has always been what we call Dope Beats, an instrumental style of HipHop from the 90s made by people like Kenny Dope, Louie Vega, Todd Terry, Frankie Feliciano, Ralphie Rosario,The Nubian Crackers, Armand Van Helden and a few others. They made HipHop but gave it the structure of House music – long instrumental arrangements with breaks and drops. The 45 King and his Viennese ambassador DJ DSL have also been big influences for us. Their approach to DJing, to arrangements and sample selection is our musical DNA. So, we take all that and try to make it our own, utilizing the history of HipHop and our broad stylistic tastes.
C: When we started out, we’d been missing the East Coast sound of the early 1990s, so we started making instrumentals inspired by Da Beatminerz, A Tribe Called Quest, and of course what Urbs just called Dope Beats. I guess the rest of the world calls it Party Breaks. Personally, I have hip-hop in my DNA and I am now listening to a wide variety of genres, but hardly any new stuff anymore. So, it’s a complex but rather conservative consumer behaviour that flows into the production.
The younger generation will probably call your style Lo-Fi HipHop. What do you think of that genre?
U: I have recently learned there is such a thing and we reluctantly put that tag on our release as well. I think some of it is okay, it definitely draws from similar influences, but as with any other genre there’s a lot of cheap crap around. Like in politics, the zone gets flooded with bullshit. And I find it quite depressing when you put so much effort intomaking your music sound exactly the way you want it to sound and then it’s called low fidelity.
There’s quite some variety on the record. The moods of the songs differ considerably.
U: As I said earlier, it started with a pool of loops and ideas that could have been pushed any way thinkable and unthinkable. It took some effort to find a way to keep up our basic principles while updating and expanding our style. When we were finished we thought about a focussed selection of 8 to 9 songs, but decided to release the whole bunch, 14 songs, bang for the buck. I think it works really well as a body of work. It’s varied but still consistent.
C: The sequence of the songs largely corresponds with the chronological order in which they were created. The album begins rather happily in the familiar “Peace Talks!” style, and becomes increasingly experimental and complex. The songs became deeper and required special attention to the arrangement. However, I think the unifying element is the constant beat.
Why is there only one rap song on the album?
U: We’ve always made instrumental music with a limited amount of vocals, so that one rap song wasn’t even planned. It just came to be because T.R.A.C. is the sweetest, most chill person in the world and an absolute pleasure to work with. He happens to be in Europe a lot because he MCs for several Drum&Bass acts and also for our hero Marc Mac, so when he was in Vienna we invited him to listen to the song, and what can I say – he always delivers!
So what are your thoughts on HipHop nowadays?
U: There’s far too much focus on the MCs compared to the producers. The MCs have stolen HipHop! They like their beats sparse and slow so nobody steals their light. All the albums nowadays sound like rag rugs because there’s 25 different producers on them, as the power lies with the manic minds of the MCs. What happened to the concept of two turntables and a microphone? The last new-ish group I really loved was Run The Jewels, because they manage this balance of the force while still advancing the artform. It’s a bit frustrating having to listen to so much crap to find the rare jewels.
C: As in every genre, there are always some good things – but not necessarily from the classic artists. The socalled Shiny Suit era heralded creative bankruptcy many years ago.
U: I think the innovative potential of HipHop lives on in other genres, like Neosoul and Jazz, because the new generation of musicians all grew up with HipHop and I can hear that influence in the music of people like Sault, Hiatus Kaiyote, Thundercat and even Shabaka Hutchings.
So… when will the next record come out?
U: There were 2 years between the first two records, then 22 years until the third came. Logic tells me our next album will be released in 222 years.
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