Review
Genre and Mood
Kutiman merges funk, jazz and electronic sounds in “Inner Galactic Lovers”, and the cosmic mood of the title fits: the song is airy and uplifting, a groove that seems to float rather than stomp.
Song Summary
“Inner Galactic Lovers” was built in an unusual way. Kutiman, the Israeli producer famous for turning unrelated YouTube clips into songs, this time commissioned the parts: 24 musicians from a dozen countries, hired through the freelance platform Fiverr, each recorded a contribution, and he assembled them into one piece. Laughing Squid called the result an ethereal original song and a departure from his usual method of mashing up videos made by strangers for other purposes.
Musical Breakdown
Intro: Cosmic Ambiance
The song opens with a spacey, laid-back atmosphere, the first parts arriving gently.
Build-up: Groove and Rhythm
Bass and drums join and lock into a groove. Kutiman said that when he asked one drummer for a couple of beats, he received about ten different loops; the build is made from choices like that.
Main Section: Melodic Exploration
Melodic lines and harmonies from different players intertwine with the rhythm. Each was recorded separately; the sense of a band playing together is the producer’s work.
Climax: Energetic Crescendo
The parts come together at their fullest, the collage at its densest.
Outro: Reflective Fade
The energy subsides and the song returns to the atmosphere of its opening.
Concepts in Focus
The song is assembled from the loop. Instead of a band in a room, Kutiman worked with repeating parts sent from different places, and his craft lies in choosing, trimming and stacking them so they line up. Listen for how the drum and bass parts, recorded by people who never met, settle into one pulse.
That pulse is the groove that holds the collage together. Funk and jazz are styles built on players listening to each other; here the listening happens afterwards, in the edit, and the groove is the proof that it worked.
The music video is part of the composition. Kutiman told American Songwriter that he paid as much attention to the footage as to the audio: he wanted the performers lined up correctly and genuinely playing what you hear. The same YouTube-born idea, that the video should show every sound being made, drives Pomplamoose – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.
Artistic Context
Kutiman (Ophir Kutiel) is an Israeli musician and producer who became known in 2009 with ThruYOU, an online project that turned amateur YouTube clips into new songs. Cities including New York and Tel Aviv later commissioned him to make similar mash-up videos. “Inner Galactic Lovers”, released in the summer of 2015 as “the Fiverr-Kutiman Project”, turned the method around: instead of finding strangers’ videos, he hired the strangers.
Impact and Reception
The song was offered as a free download, including as Radio Milwaukee’s weekly download in July 2015, and Fiverr sponsored its airplay on US radio. Its lasting interest is as a document of how music can be made by people who never share a room, a question that has only grown more relevant since.
