Never ceasing to amaze and fascinate, Kutiman (whose groundbreaking Thru-You video album was chosen by Time Magazine as One of the 50 Best Inventions of 2009) has returned with another video in the vein of the Thru-You series. Digging on an even deeper level, he returns to form with this new song entitled “My Favorite Color”. This bit of smoothed-out jazz is in a class of its own, furthering the mystique that Kutiman has helped to generate in a class of his own.

Kutiman – My Favorite Color

I’m not really a big Maroon 5 fan (though I respect their willingness to be experimental and branch out). But when I found out that one of my favorite performers, Kutiman, was working on a remix video with them, I took notice. Here’s the finished product, worth a look and a listen.

“Kutiman mixes Maroon 5″ includes exclusive footage of all band members playing, jamming and having fun during their latest college tour in the U.S. Kutiman edited these videos to create a new track that will surely indulge and surprise Maroon 5′s fans.

Kutiman is working on a follow-up to his self-titled debut at present, more details as they come in.

If you take a look at the recently-published list of Time Magazine’s “50 Best Inventions of 2009″, you will find many technologically significant inventions — NASA’s missles, a racing car made entirely out of food, and even a human-powered vending machine. Among these inventions, a surprising (and deserved) addition has appeared: the YouTube remix projects of Israeli musician & composer Kutiman as seen in his prodigious website, ThruYOU. ThruYOU, completed in just two months time, is a sweeping work of musical “found art”, deftly and intelligently remixed into miniature funk masterpieces. Ophir Kutiel, better known to the world as Kutiman, spent weeks searching through YouTube videos of dozens of musicians, primarily amateurs, to find patches of instrumentation and vocals from which he would invent his virtual funk quilt.

While this description may seem at first pedestrian, the resulting videos and songs are anything but ordinary. Bearing little resemblance to the original pieces from which they were culled, Kutiman used his love of funk, jazz and soul music to imbue each of the songs with it’s own life. ThruYOU takes the concept of sampling to another level, creating a recognizable touchstone which changes the game for all time.

You can vote on this item by clicking here to visit Time Magazine’s piece on “The 50 Best Inventions of 2009″ where you can rank ThruYOU’s importance on a scale of 1 to 100.

Kutiman – “Wait for Me”

Click here to download all the tracks from ThruYOU from Loudersoft.

[ThruYOU : MySpace : Time's 50 Best Inventions of 2009]

(Editor’s note: this originally appeared on Loudersoft on 4 March 2009. I’ve updated the post to include MP3′s of the tracks so that, hopefully, it will pull people from MP3 search engines to discover Kutiman and his site. It’s definitely my favorite website of 2009 and, without a doubt, one of my favorite experiences of the past decade. If you’re visiting here from The Hype Machine, please be sure to go back and ‘love’ the songs you love by clicking here. Thanks.)

The full story on Thru-You, video and MP3′s after the jump.

Perennial Loudersoft favorite (and Israeli soul brother extraordinaire) Kutiman has changed the game up inna massive style with http://thru-you.com — wherein he takes pieces of videos from YouTube and remixes them.

But Kutiman doesn’t just remix them, you see — he completely re-arranges them to make entirely new songs, a style often paralleled by artists like DJ Shadow, Girl Talk and producers, including the late great J. Dilla. Unlike the mediocre Dilla copy-catters and the weekend Girl Talk wanna-be’s, Kutiman’s ingenious idea to use freely available YouTube footage of people playing their own instruments and patching them together into the framework you are hearing is solidly game-changing. Thru-You explores the limitless possibilities presented by YouTube for creative people who dream of remixing the world. Others may have attempted something like this, but I certainly haven’t seen it done with such an unnerving depth.

Get there and check this out. It’s seriously amazing. http://thru-you.com

Kutiman – The Mother of All Funk Chords
Kutiman – This is What it Became
Kutiman – I’m New
Kutiman – Babylon Band
Kutiman – Someday
Kutiman – Wait for Me
Kutiman – Just a Lady
Kutiman – About [thru-you]

[MySpace : Thru-You : YouTube Channel]

Purchase Kutiman’s self-titled first album on iTunes here:

Here’s her video for the song “Pointless Drinking”. If you were one of the lucky ones who got to see her across the pond recently, hang onto your soul because it’s obviously filled with good fortune.

No, you ain’t reading a typo, The Band that will soon be the house band on the Jimmy Fallon show, The Band who straight-up dropped ‘the N word’ 39 times in the song “75 Bars (Black’s Reconstruction)” has made a piece being shown on Noggin and Nick,Jr.! Yo Gabba Gabba is about as cool as it gets — fun for the whole family for certain, and hey — this awesome track is 100% clean too. Be sure and click “more” on the YouTube page hosting the video for a link to the MP3 if you want it. YEAAAAAAAAAAAH! (HT: ?uestlove)

Purchase “Lovely, Love My Family” from Yo Gabba Gabba on iTunes — click below

Ladytron – Ghosts (Blestenation Mix)

We love Charles Jenkins around here & this brand-spanking new video from one of Australia’s best-kept secret musical geniuses extends that love. Enjoy.

Bloc Party – Talons (Courtesy of 8/1)

So listen, Ye. First off, I would bet you don’t read blogs and, most likely, you don’t read mine. That’s okay with me. I am just another fucking fan out there who lost his cool after being up all night. I was tired and cranky last week. I want to apologize for being a dick. I admit that my comments were pretty harsh on you about what went down at Bonnaroo. I sent my Idolator update on the morning after it happened, four or five hours sleep after the fact, so I was still pretty stung about the delays and all that. Not that it probably matters to you, but I wasn’t trying to get in the “‘Ye Hater” line.

But I didn’t understand what caused all the drama last Sunday morning and, a week later, we still don’t know for sure. You haven’t said anything about it, and I’m surprised.

I know you’ve got the dopest live show in the universe and you wanted to share it with the Bonnaroo crowd. Would you please say something about why your set started almost 2 hours late and got cut 75 minutes short? I know, you’re going to say “that doesn’t concern you”. Well, indeed, it concerns all the fans who were at Bonnaroo that had great expectations.

I personally left Sigur Ros at 2:00 a.m. to walk over to your show, knowing that if I didn’t I wouldn’t be able to get a seat. When people were starting to boo you and leave, I stayed because, like the faithful, I believed you were coming up just any minute.

By the time I realized you weren’t coming until way fucking late, I had missed everything else I wanted to see — Talib Kweli, Lupe Fiasco, Chali2na, Ghostland Observatory. I might have been honored by your lateness for even showing up to that fake shit, but I was actually let down by the shortness of the set list and a lot of people aren’t going to forget this. Feel me?

I retract any insinuation that your show “sucked” or was not up to par — I really liked it, truth be told. I just wanted to have the full experience that was promised. I wanted it to live up to John Pareles’s massive praises. You and I both know it wasn’t the same show you’ve been hitting the people with, that it had to be edited down for some reason or another.

I’ll even blame Pearl Jam if you want me to. Just tell me how I’m supposed to feel. Right now, I feel like one of those people in the movie Tommy who went to “Tommy’s Holiday Camp” only to throw away their eye shades, earplugs and corks. I am not alone, and you gotta know that.

The people who came to see you would have come at 8:15 or 9:30 or 4:30 or whenever you said you were taking the stage — all that had to happen was for you to show up even just *fashionably* late and give us the full strength of what you had prepared. That didn’t happen, so please just put me (and everyone else) in check on this whole thing. Come out and call us bitches or whatever, give us something to explain the whole delay that makes sense. Don’t hide behind publicists and P.R. people. Someone who is as intelligent and vocal as you are doesn’t have to hide behind anyone. Speak for yourself. Otherwise, the hate and confusion will just persist.

Look, I’m going to respect and support you anyways. I don’t care what someone else does. But I like that feeling of being able to say to people, “See? I told you there’s a reason why Kanye is one of the most important voices in modern music. He ain’t scared of anything or anyone.” I can’t come right out and say that, though, until we clear this up. Nahh mean?

———————-

Now, on a props note, I have to say this — I got your back when it comes to the Ice T. vs Soulja Boy controversy. Your assessment of the situation is absolutely accurate. For those not aware, here’s what Kanyeezy had to say in his official blog on the whole thing –

Soulja boy is fresh ass hell and is actually the true meaning of what hip hop is sposed to be. He came from the hood, made his own beats, made up a new saying, new sound and a new dance with one song. He had all of America rapping this summer. If that ain’t Hip Hop then what is? A bunch of wannabe keep it real rappers that ain’t even relevant, recycling samples trying to act like it’s 96 again and all they do is hate on new shit? Niggas always talk about the golden age but for a 13 year old kid, this is the golden age!!! That song was so dope cause everything he said had a hidden meaning… that’s Nas level shit… he just put it over some steel drums which is also some Nas shit if you had the 2nd album cassette with the bonus track “Silent Murder” on it. In closing… new niggas get ya money$$$$$$$$$$ Keep this shit fresh and original…. ain’t no fuckin’ rules to this shit and that’s what real hip hop is to me.

- Kanye West

This whole controversy is stupid as can be. Ice-T needs to check himself. He needs to go back to the dungeons of rap and find out what’s going on because all that f’in Tutuola time on Law & Order: SVU has fucked him up in the cranium. Maybe he’s not gettin’ enough Coco T? Whatever it is, this is the dumbest shit stirring in the history of hip-hop and it needs to be squashed. Appreciate you speaking up for the game.

Here’s Soulja Boy’s response

Here comes Ice-T trying to “Iceberg” his way back into the game. Whatever, yo.

To prove how easy it is, I made this in just a few minutes. It speaks for itself, so I won’t try. What is there to be scared of? Give it a shot! There’s currently only 50 entries, and you have until July 7th to enter.