Here are some things you might already know about Cut, even if you haven't heard one note of the Slits' music: This is the first time the album's been released domestically in the U.S. on CD (with the obligatory bonus tracks). The album cover features three members of the group wearing nothing but mud and loincloths. When the group first formed, they couldn't play their instruments for shit. The songs on the album offer an amalgam of punk's abrasive DIY WTF-ness and the spacious relaxed rhythms of dub reggae. This album is a keystone for any and all punk-based grrrl movements. And-- though it goes without saying, it's often said anyway-- this album is terribly, terribly important in the history of the rock music and the grand scheme of canonical flippity floo flap.
Funny thing is, for all its import, Cut is actually a lot of fun. Fun in the way Ari Up trills and coos and yelps across the songs like a precocious schoolgirl taunting all the boys and teachers. Fun in the way Viv Albertine scratches and waxes her guitar. Fun in the way Tessa's bass and Budgie's drums slip in and out of grooves like lovers test-driving the Kama Sutra. Fun in the way the group turns every subject it touches into a giddy playground sing-a-long, whether it be a diatribe against pre-set gender roles ("Typical Girls"), a story about Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten butting heads ("So Tough"), a cautionary tale about PiL's Keith Levene's drug use ("Instant Hit"), or songs tackling other didactic topics like invasive media propaganda, shoplifting and the idealized love of a new purchase. Fun in the way producer Dennis Bovell employees spoons and matchboxes as beat accents (in "Newtown"), centers the group's meanderings with a little piano or more traditional percussion, and allows the band to occupy both punk and dub at the same time. The Slits don't destroy passerby: They stop them, dance around them, sing songs to and about them, playfully taunt and tease them, and then pass them the dutchie.
The bonus tracks are OK add-ons-- the group's version of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" was slated to be the record's first single way back in the day, and would have served fine as another respectfully disrespectful punk cover, but appropriately ended up as the B-side to the actual first single, "Typical Girls". "Liebe and Romanze (Slow Version)" is an instrumental version of "Love Und Romance" bathing in the hot and welcome tropical sun outside of Lee Perry's studio, and serves as a pleasant cool down after the frenetic shenanigans that preceded. But, of course, if you're giving this album a spin, it's for the first 10 tracks, and if you're coming to them for the very first time, then I envy you. Yes, this is an important document, and part of any balanced popular musical diet, but this isn't a multi-vitamin-- this is skipping school as spring turns to summer to spend an extra-long lunch with friends driving to the not-so-local Jamaican bakery for a few beef patties and some much-needed fresh air. Take a long, deep breath, and enjoy the moment while it lasts.
