Thru You Too

Ever uploaded a song you've written and sung to YouTube? Or your flute practice or drum lessons? Then you might well recognize yourself on Kutiman’s new album. The Israeli composer, musician and producer sees the video site as one big sample resource, and makes grateful use of it. He creates whole new numbers from dozens of videos: smoothly edited songs composed from the work of unknown musicians who have unknowingly become part of something bigger than their own tune. Kutiman broke through in 2009 with the online music project The new album is a follow-up to this. Apart from Kutiman’s compositions, also features the original YouTube clips he used in his songs. Once again, Kutiman hasn’t asked these musicians for permission, but most of them feel privileged to be included, and the extra attention drawn to their own videos is a nice bonus: it’s the 15 minutes of famethey'd hoped for when they uploaded them. Social sharing is used here to create a new art form that defies the traditional notion of authorship and challenges current ways of artistic creation.