Grasscut are a musical group featuring composer/producer Andrew Phillips and musician/writer

Marcus O'Dair Marcus O'Dair is an English writer, musician/manager, broadcaster and lecturer. He is most notable for his work as part of the band Grasscut, described by '' Clash'' magazine as "genuinely daring electronica artists". He is also notable for his 20 ...

. Phillips writes and produces all Grasscut music; he also sings and plays various instruments including guitar and keyboards. O'Dair manages the act and contributes keyboards and double bass. They are based in

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

, England.

History

Grasscut have released two albums on

Ninja Tune Ninja Tune is an independent record label based in London, with a satellite office in Los Angeles. It was founded in 1990 by musicians Matt Black and Jonathan More, known collectively as Coldcut. The label was established as an outlet for Col ...

, ''1 inch: 1/2 Mile'' (2010) and ''Unearth'' (2012). Their third album, ''Everyone Was a Bird'', was released by

Lo Recordings Lo Recordings is a label founded in 1995 by Jon Tye. They are noted for their strong visual style thanks to Non-Format, with whom they work very closely and won a D&AD award for several of their releases sleeves. Musical style Lo recordings m ...

in 2015. Contributors to Grasscut's albums include

Robert Wyatt Robert Wyatt (born Robert Wyatt-Ellidge, 28 January 1945) is an English retired musician. A founding member of the influential Canterbury scene bands Soft Machine and Matching Mole, he was initially a kit drummer and singer before becoming para ...

John Surman John Douglas Surman (born 30 August 1944) is an English jazz saxophone, Clarinet family, clarinet, and synthesizer player, and composer of free jazz and modal jazz, often using themes from folk music. He has composed and performed music for danc ...

Adrian Crowley Adrian Crowley is a singer, composer, songwriter, lyricist from Galway, based in Dublin and was born in Sliema, Malta. Crowley has released eight albums to date, with his debut ''A Strange Kind'' arriving in 1999. He followed this with ''When ...

Gazelle Twin Elizabeth Bernholz (née Walling, born 1981), better known by her stage name Gazelle Twin, is an electronic music composer, producer and musician who is currently based in Leicestershire, England. Life and career Elizabeth Bernholz studied mus ...

Seb Rochford Sebastian Rochford is a Scottish drummer and composer. He has recorded and released music as leader of the British band Polar Bear, as Kutcha Butcha and as part of numerous collaborations. Early life Rochford was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, a ...

Oddfellows Casino Oddfellows Casino are an English band based in Brighton. At the helm is singer-songwriter David Bramwell plus an ensemble of long-serving band members and occasional collaborators including Fujiya & Miyagi’s Steve Lewis, former Stereolab bassis ...

, and Elisabeth Nygård. Grasscut have remixed artists including

Bonobo The bonobo (; ''Pan paniscus''), also historically called the pygmy chimpanzee (less often the dwarf chimpanzee or gracile chimpanzee), is an endangered great ape and one of the two species making up the genus ''Pan (genus), Pan'' (the other bei ...

Coldcut Coldcut are an English electronic music duo composed of Matt Black and Jonathan More. Credited as pioneers for pop sampling in the 1980s, Coldcut are also considered the first stars of UK electronic dance music due to their innovative style, ...

Jaga Jazzist Jaga Jazzist (also known as Jaga) is a Norwegian experimental jazz band, that rose to prominence when the BBC named their second album, ''A Livingroom Hush'' (Smalltown Supersound/Ninja Tune), the best jazz album of 2002. (in Norwegian) Biograph ...

Leo Abrahams Leo Matthew Abrahams (born 28 November 1977) is an English musician, composer and producer. He has collaborated with Brian Eno, Katie Melua, Imogen Heap, Jarvis Cocker, Carl Barât, Regina Spektor, Jon Hopkins and Paul Simon. After attending th ...

, and John Metcalfe; in turn, they have been remixed by

Bibio Stephen James Wilkinson (born 4 December 1978), better known as Bibio, is an English musician and producer. He is known for a distinct analog lo-fi sound, and for working in a diverse range of genres, beginning in folktronica and ambient and ...

Nathan Fake Nathan Fake (born 3 March 1983) is an English electronic music artist from Necton, Norfolk, England. He has released music on the Border Community, Ninja Tune, and Cambria Instruments labels (the latter a project by Fake and Wesley Matsell). ...

and

Penguin Cafe Arthur William Phoenix Young Jeffes (born 21 July 1978, Paddington, London, England) is an English composer, musician, and arctic explorer. He is the frontman of the musical group Penguin Cafe, a group he formed in 2007 to play the music of his ...

1 Inch: ½ Mile

Following the release of ''1 Inch: ½ Mile'',

Clash magazine ''Clash'' is a music and fashion magazine and website based in the United Kingdom. It is published four times a year by Music Republic Ltd, whose predecessor Clash Music Ltd went into liquidation. The magazine won awards including the Best New M ...

described Grasscut as ''"genuinely daring electronica artists"'', with the album appearing as

Mojo magazine ''Mojo'' (stylised in all caps) is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom, initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer. Following the success of the magazine '' Q'', publishers Emap were looking for a title that ...

’s electronica album of the month, one of iDJ’s debut albums of the year and one of the top ten pop albums of the year according to the

Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, first published on 5 February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegr ...

. Speaking to the Quietus website,

Tom Robinson Living people Thomas Giles Robinson (born 1 June 1950) is a British singer, bassist, radio presenter and long-time LGBT rights activist, best known for the hits " Glad to Be Gay", " 2-4-6-8 Motorway", and "Don't Take No for an Answer", with hi ...

BBC 6 Music BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It primarily plays a wide range of alternative music, from established and emerging artists and bands. In 2002 it was the first national music radio station t ...

named it one of his top 13 albums of all time

Unearth

According to Andy Gill of ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', Grasscut's second album, ''Unearth'', should have been on the Mercury list. Both records won 5-star reviews from ''

the Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are often names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * The Telegraph (Adelaide), ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaid ...

''; support has also come from the ''

Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'', ''

Word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...

'', '' Uncut'', '' Time Out'', '' Q'' and '' Clash''. They have had airplay from

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and Contemporary hit radio, current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including ...

, 2, 3,

BBC Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts mainly news, sport, Talk show, discussion, interviews and phone-ins, and is on air 24 hours a day. It is the principal BBC radio station Broadca ...

and

BBC Radio 6 Music BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It primarily plays a wide range of alternative music, from established and emerging artists and bands. In 2002 it was the first national music radio station t ...

, and have played sessions on 6Music and

XFM Radio X is a British national commercial radio station focused on alternative music, primarily indie rock, and owned by Global. The station launched in 1989 as a pirate radio station named Q102, before being renamed Xfm in 1992. The station b ...

Everyone Was a Bird

In May 2015 Grasscut released their third studio album titled ''Everyone Was a Bird''. The album has been described by Clash as "an engrossing, artful work", and by

The Quietus ''The Quietus'' is a British online music and pop culture magazine founded by John Doran and Luke Turner. The site is an editorially independent publication led by Doran with a group of freelance journalists and critics. Content ''The Quietu ...

as "that rare slab of post-rock that uses the genre's textures and general ethos of exploration to create new sounds instead of rehashing old ones". The album features guest vocals from

and Seamus Fogarty and strings by Emma Smith and Vince Sipprell. The liner notes were written by acclaimed landscape writer Robert Macfarlane and were premiered on the website Caught by the River in April 2015.

Everyone Was a Bird - Remixed

In March 2016, online magazine

announced Grasscut's fourth album was to be a remix album. The album includes remixes from artists including Mira Calix, John Metcalfe, Leo Abrahams and

, and was released on

in the UK and Sounds et al in the US.

Live show

Since opening the main stage at the

Big Chill festival The Big Chill was an annual festival of alternative, dance and chill-out music and comedy, held in the grounds of Eastnor Castle during early August. The 2011 line-up included The Chemical Brothers, Kanye West, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Jessie J, Ro ...

in 2009, Grasscut have performed at

Cecil Sharp House Cecil may refer to: People with the name * Cecil (given name), a given name (including a list of people and fictional characters with the name) * Cecil (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) Places Canada * Cecil, Albert ...

, Union Chapel, the ICA, Koko and

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...

, as well as in France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Czech Republic, Portugal, Poland and Slovakia. They have shared stages with the likes of

Kronos Quartet The Kronos Quartet is an American string quartet based in San Francisco. It has been in existence with a rotating membership of musicians for 50 years. The quartet covers a very broad range of musical genres, including contemporary classical musi ...

Silver Apples Silver Apples were an American electronic rock group from New York, active between 1967 and 1970, before reforming in the mid-1990s. It was composed of Simeon (born Simeon Oliver Coxe III, June 4, 1938 – September 8, 2020), who performed ...

Caribou The reindeer or caribou (''Rangifer tarandus'') is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only represe ...

, Fink and

. Although they performed early shows as a duo, Grasscut have usually been joined onstage by drummer Aram Zarikian (Andreya Triana) and string player Emma Smith (Geese, Elysian Quartet,

Jon Hopkins Jonathan Julian Hopkins (born 15 August 1979) is an English musician and producer who writes and performs electronic music. He began his career playing keyboards for Imogen Heap, and has produced but also contributed to albums by Brian Eno, Co ...

James Yorkston James Yorkston (born James Patrick Yorkston Wright; 21 December 1971) is a Scottish folk musician, singer-songwriter and author from the village of Kingsbarns, Fife. He has been releasing music since 2001. As well as recording as a solo artist ...

Imogen Heap Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap ( ; born 9 December 1977) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, and entrepreneur. She is considered a pioneer in pop music, particularly electropop, and in music technology. While attending the ...

Hot Chip Hot Chip is an English synth-pop band formed in London in 2000. The group consists of multi-instrumentalists Alexis Taylor, Joe Goddard (musician), Joe Goddard, Al Doyle, Owen Clarke, and Felix Martin. They are occasionally joined by former memb ...

). They are also known for their use of visuals, originally developed with As Described ( Portishead, Cinematic Orchestra).

Link to landscape

Grasscut are known for their landscape-based concepts, usually emerging in collaboration with Pedr Browne (also responsible for the Grasscut artwork). 1 Inch: ½ Mile came with a map detailing a walk through the ‘lost’ village of

Balsdean Balsdean is a deserted hamlet in a remote downland valley east of Brighton, East Sussex, England, on record since about 1100. It was formerly a chapelry of the parish of Rottingdean, and its territory touched that of the mother parish only at a ...

, just outside

. An audio clue, contained within a downloadable track, provided details of the location of a hidden artefact: a unique recording on a cassette. This idea was extended on Grasscut’s second album, Unearth. Each track was reimagined by Phillips, and these ‘shadow’ versions – again on cassette – were secreted, each with a Walkman, in specific locations around England and Wales.

Use in media

Grasscut's music has been used on the soundtracks of

The New Pope ''The New Pope'' is a satirical drama television series created and directed by Paolo Sorrentino for Sky Atlantic, HBO and Canal+. It is a continuation of the 2016 series ''The Young Pope'', originally announced as its second season. The nine-ep ...

'', '' Waterloo Road, and Continuum. Their music has also been used by

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

, and in major advertising campaigns worldwide. Grasscut’s hit single "The Lights - M25 Version" was featured in K-Mart’s annual Christmas commercials and advertising during the 2012 holiday shopping season.

Discography

Albums

* 1 Inch: 1/2 Mile (

, 2010) * Unearth (

, 2012) * Unearth Shadow Version (

, 2012) * Everyone Was A Bird (

, 2015) * Everyone Was A Bird - Remixed (

/Sounds et al, 2016) * Overwinter (

, 2021) * Haunts (

, 2021)

Singles

* High Down (Ninja Tune, 2009) * The Door in the Wall (Ninja Tune, 2010) * Muppet (Ninja Tune, 2010) * From Towns & Fields (Ninja Tune, 2012) * Pieces (Ninja Tune, 2012) * Catholic Architecture (Lo Recordings, 2014) * Curlews (Lo Recordings, 2015) * Radar (Lo Recordings, 2015)

Remixes by Grasscut

* Voluntary Butler Scheme – Trading Things In (2009) * Bonobo ft Andreya Triana: The Keeper – Bitter Peace remix (Ninja Tune, 2010) * Jaga Jazzist: Toccata (Ninja Tune, 2010) * Coldcut: Sound Mirrors (Ninja Tune, 2010) * Crewdson: Mime (Slowfoot, 2010) * Spokes: 3, 4, 5 (Counter, 2011) * Brasstronaut: Hearts Trompet (Tri-Tone, 2011) * Zoon Van Snook: Shall He? Shanty (Mush Records, 2012) * Tim Bowness: Smiler at 52 (There Were Days Grasscut Remix) (Inside Out Music, 2014) * Nick Nicely: London South (Lo Recordings, 2015)

Remixes of Grasscut

* Nathan Fake: Muppet (Ninja Tune, 2010) * Bibio: The Door In The Wall (Ninja Tune, 2010) * Prdctv: The Door In The Wall (Ninja Tune, 2010)

Other

* Blink In The Night: Ninja Tune XX box set (Ninja Tune, 2010)

References

External links

* {{Authority control English electronic music duos English post-rock groups English rock music duos