Music: Brooklyn's Jon Cutler gets his due

Hm, well, not quite, but he really should.

Since I've been re-e-e-ally slow to adapt to the digital download revolution, being a house music lover can be not only taxing on the pocket but also frustrating as most of the house music market is outside the United States which makes it that much more difficult to track down quality music, much less on CD format (most house singles are released on vinyl anyway).

Last year on import, I got "Milk'n'2 Sugars Presents Ten Years of Our House" containing a CD mixed by Hardsoul and another mixed by Jon Cutler. The Cutler CD was a sultry, slow-burning, deep, deep, DEEP beauty of a selection which included my now-faves Liquid People's "Inside My Soul," Kenny Bobien "Haya Luv," Passionador's "Everlasting Love" and Scott Wozniak's "Can I Hear the Drums" (you can hear some samples at the hyperlink above). The stand-outs were Jon's own "Running" and "Focus," which opened and closed the mix. Then I suddenly realized that Jon had also been the man behind the great track, "It's Yours," and all of a sudden I was paying attention.

Well, German record label Soul Star Records has just put out Jon's latest mix, "Jon Cutler In the Mix," and I'm lucky enough to live in New York which means I've been also able to pick up on import (though I just noticed Amazon is carrying it so go to the previous link if you wanna pick-it up or listen to samples or also click here). It's got the Brazilian bongo-beat rhythms of DJ Oji's "Esteban," Jon's stomping mix of Melba Moore's "My Heart Belongs to You," the hypnoctic night trance pulse of "Insomnia," Ron Hall's sublime "The Way You Love Me," and Monique Bingham's stunner "Poor People."

I can almost say that Jon Cutler is the best house music producer at the moment (standing, at the very least, next to Sandy Rivera a/k/a Kings of Tomorrow and Martin Solveig). Though, how come it takes a British and German import house label for us in the United States to find out about it? By the way, the boy lives in Brooklyn, so if anybody knows of any local DJ sets by Jon, would they please let us know?

In the meantime, to get a taste of what I am talking about, check a full clip of a Jon Cutler mix here.

Update: Jon Cutler mixes and podcasts (April 5, 2006)