Celebrating
its 45th anniversary today is the debut LP by The Slits, Cut, which was
released on September 7th, 1979. It's an album that would highlight
the core of the "girl power" substrata inherent in the punk and
post-punk scenes of the era, with a collection of distinctive and
innovative songs, influenced and infused by dub reggae and underlined by
the DIY idiosyncrasies of the culture.
The
band originally came together in late 1976 after founding members Viv
Albertine and Palmolive had a stint earlier that year in the mythical
Flowers of Romance, a band that never performed live or recorded, but
which had a revolving door of notable members who included the likes of
Keith Levene (The Clash, Public Image Ltd), Sid Vicious, Marco Pirroni
(Adam & the Ants, Siouxsie and the Banshees) and Kenny Morris (also a
Banshees member). The impetus for The Slits formation was an October
1976 Patti Smith gig attended by Ari Up, Palmolive and early member,
Kate Korus. Ari had got into an argument with her mum, future wife of
John Lydon, Nora Foster, before being approached by Palmolive and Kora
with the idea to form a band. After an initial lineup shuffle, the
principal early lineup stabilized with Ari, Viv, Palmolive and Tessa
Pollit.
This configuration of
the group spent the next couple of years performing and touring, mostly
as a support act, often with bands like The Clash, Buzzcocks or The Jam
as headliners. Their early sound was characterized by the dominance of
Palmolive's primal, tribal aggressive drumming style. However, after
she left the group late in 1978, joining The Raincoats by January of
1979, the addition of future Banshees drummer, Budgie, had a profound
effect on the band's sound. His style helped to push them into the more
refined, bass heavy dub reggae influenced sound that would be their
calling card by the time they got to recording their debut LP.
Recorded
at Ridge Farm Studios in Rusper and produced by Dennis Bovell, the
album was a proper fusion of punk and reggae, two musical styles which
had intertwined throughout the previous few years, without being a case
of cultural appropriation. What the group took as influence was a
sincere hybridization, rather than a case of white people ripping off
black music. It had its own originality and distinction that was
completely idiosyncratic to The Slits. Provocatively packaged in a
cover showing the band's female members topless, covered in mud and
sporting loincloths, it was a thumb in the eye to the concept of sexual
exploitation and, rather, was a proclamation of female empowerment, with
the album's title, as it was, being but one letter shy of obscenity.
These girls weren't anyone's playthings or victims, and were in complete
control of their creative process and what it manifested.
Cut's
mark has been noted on several musical movements. The Guardian's
Lindesay Irvine saw the album explore "adventurous" sonics while
maintaining a "defiant" attitude. This included a full embrace of
Jamaican music influences, with which he credited the Slits as one of
the first bands to do so. Indeed, PopMatters felt that Cut spoke to
post-punk's appropriation of dub and reggae clearer than any other of
the genre's records. While only modestly successful at its release, it
has become enshrined as one of the essential albums to have come from
the UK punk scene of the late 1970s. It may have taken some time for
the band to get a record on the shelves, but it sure was worth waiting
for.
