Dru Cutler – Oceanside & Dance Me to the End of Love
URL: http://www.drucutler.com/oceanside
Dru Cutler draws from a deep toolbox to realize the musical ambitions we hear on his songs “Oceanside” and a cover of Leonard Cohen’s mid-eighties tune “Dance Me to the End of Love” – his time working as a film composer, jingle writer, and cover band singer informs his efforts on this two song preview of Cutler’s forthcoming full length album Bring Closer the Distance. His baritone singing voice stands out from the pack of younger performers attempting to make names for themselves in the modern music scene and has graced some of the most prestigious venues in the United States like The Living Room, Avery Fisher Hall, and Rockwood Music Hall and there’s no question these two tracks will work exceptionally well in a live setting. The Tampa, Florida native has long since settled into his new environs of Brooklyn, New York and is the co-founder of a formidable music collective dubbed Unit J. The intimacy of those performances, undoubtedly, contributes much to the quality we hear in these two songs.
There’s a jangling dissonance in “Oceanside” coupled with solid rhythm section work that gives the song a stable foundation. It has a very straight-forward musical attack throughout and relies just enough on melodic turns to stick in listener’s memory. There’s an ambient quality running through the song’s background and the transition from verse to chorus, later the bridge as well, comes without a single misstep. His vocals really capture a clear pop spirit with the bridge, but he’s elongating words and practically leering out some lines in the song’s first half. There’s a lovely understated guitar solo dropping in over the acoustic guitar on the song’s final lap. The title song for the EP definitely has an appreciable pop flavor, but Cutler’s specific lyrical content and slightly mysterious atmospherics give it an arty, compelling quality.
Longtime Cohen fans will hear the master’s original coming through on his cover of “Dance Me to the End of Love”, but Cutler has shorn the song of its additional layers of instrumentation in favor of a much more brash and uncomplicated thrust – the to the bone economy of the song has such a forceful present it isn’t possible for listeners to be left cold and Cutler’s attentive, patient phrasing of one of Cohen’s richest later lyrics becomes a malleable artistic vessel thanks to theto his presence and fluidity. The obvious emotion he packs into each minute of this cover would, undoubtedly, denote Cutler as one of the finest singers working in this style still touring today. It’s virtually the same length as the original track and shakes things up in comparison. The preview aspect is almost negligible; it’s brief, but the release stands on its own as not a long lived or short man. Dru Cutler’s career will likely ascend to another gear based on this second full length album coming out soon and Oceanside serves as a tasty preview of what’s coming from that release.
Mindy McCall
