After four weeks of treatment at the Betty Ford Clinic, Ansel made his way down the street, as confident as ever that he never fall back into his addiction. Around the first block, he could smell the fresh grind, tempting him ever slightly so. Becoming a little despondent, he rolled his way down an alley. Big mistake. He smacked right into his old dealer."Ansel, my friend," the dark figure began, you lookin' for a fix?"
"Oh!" cried Ansel, but not before this alley cat opened his trench coat, revealing the best Colombian brew one could ever ask for.
"How about a gift certificate to Starbuck ?" Ansel became overwhelmed, stuttered a bit, and fell to the ground, choked up on his own indecision. For you see, Ansel is but a donut. His affliction? An addiction to soaking up the finest coffee brews. This undoubtedly creates a problem, as when he is left sitting in a mug of hot coffee, Ansel often loses his bottom half in the cup trying to get out. Surgical reattachment is painful and often pricey. This is the reason Ansel checked himself into the clinic, but things were already getting off to a bad start.
Ansel woke up a couple hours later in a pool of his own vomit. He dusted himself off, took a deep breath, and vowed to work it out. "I need a distraction," he surmised.
At first he tried paintballing, but that left him looking sprinkled or jelly-filled, and lets face it, chick donuts don't dig that. Next, he tried kayaking, but the mischievous river kids used him as an inner tube to battle the rapids instead. Left with no other options, Ansel signed up to become a fornication device at the local sperm bank.
This continued for three months, and although Ansel was miserable, he was living clean. But that never quelled the urges. Bruised and bloodied after a horrible day at work, he retreated home in the darkness, his body tickling with impulse. The local coffee shop! "Don't do it, Ansel, don't do it!" But he did.
His body became soggy with anticipation as he stood in line. Four people in front of him. Three. Two. No, this guy was holding a spot in line for his friend. Two. One. "Excuse me young man, can you help me with something?" cooed a looming shadow.
Ansel turned to see a large carrot beckoning. "What the fuck," he thought, "a talking vegetable?" Figuring it to be one of his psychedelic visions, he answered the call.
The carrot went on to explain: "My dear boy, I seem to have lost my ipod, and at this little coffee shop, you are nothing without your hipster gear. I can see all too well. Yes, I understand the irony being a vitamin-A-rich carrot and all, but I cannot use my eyes to locate my lost treasure for the life of me. I will reward you handsomely, boy, if you retrieve this item for me." This tale was enough to snap Ansel out of his craving, and he decided to take up the mission.
As soon as he set foot outside, he spotted a little white device on the sidewalk. It was an ipod. He couldn't believe his fortune, marched right back into the coffee shop, and brought it over to the little corner table he had just left from not just two seconds ago. The carrot was gone.
A tumbleweed flew across the shop as Ansel sat patiently waiting for the mysterious figure to return. The sound of grinders and smell of fresh tin was slowly seducing him. "Oh," he thought, "I can't relapse." He tried to leave, but his body wouldn't move. "Shit. All for naught."
With his last nerve, he clutched the ipod tightly and accidentally turned it on. He could hear a faint noise coming from the headphones and gathered the energy to don them. "Mmm, that's quite a bit of delay pedal." The sound was soothing and hypnotizing enough to lull him into a different world. The four tracks began and ended just like that. Ansel looked down at the display. ".cut." Never heard of them.
He played it again. And again. And again. Especially that last track, "Your Naked Dead Body." How enchanting. Before Ansel knew it, he completely lost himself in the music. He had acquired a new addiction, that of the delay pedal. And boy was he soaking. Taking in the drone of Eluvium, the reverberations of destroyalldreamers, and the overdubs of Arca, Ansel was left to float in this new world that made coffee seem like child play.
No, unwittingly, Ansel had become victim to a stronger addiction, one that left him completely paralyzed. Slowly. Until his death. No one in the coffee shop noticing Ansel lifeless, stale corpse, the carrot crept back in from the shadows, capturing the dough, and eating it whole. For this carrot was addicted to donuts, and his plan was an absolute success.

Jerome Holeyman - www.thesilentballet.com - Janvier 2007


.cut - Arctic Circle
3,5/5
Visioni plumbee
È una Francia oscura e sotterranea quella dei .cut, duo laptop/chitarra con base a Lione. Giocano la carta dell'ambientale ipnotico condito dalla presenza marginale di chitarra e campionature vocali, coniugando silicio e corde in quattro eleganti voli pindarici. È post-rock seppure nell'ottica industriale, divulgazione siderale del suono, sinfonie impalpabili che aleggiano libere nell'etere.
Alberick e Gibet hanno dato vita alla colonna sonora dell'inquietudine, dipingono delicate sfumature di paesaggi lontani nel tempo, venature angosciose di un presente instabile: è un disco in cui i raggi del sole fanno fatica a fare breccia nel muro del feedback creato. La vetta dell'album è toccata da "Harry Truman Will Never Die", dove in un oceano di puro riverbero si affollano incubi ed ispirazioni, elettronica e voci distanti.
Una raccolta di composizioni rarefatte ed oniriche cui nuoce alla lunga un'eccessiva uniformità di registri. "Arctic circle" è un'esperienza bella e straniante che alla fine lascia qualcosa più che un filo di malinconia.

Alessandro Bonetti - www.kronic.it - Janvier 2007


.CUT FEATURING GIBET : " Artic circle "
Obsolete records, 2006
Post-rock industriel, France
Mini-CDR
Javais découvert .cut (prononcé « dot cut »)FEATURING GIBET, il y a quelques années en première partie du groupe electro-dark HOCICO. Javais alors eu du mal à décrire le style de .cut, cest dailleurs avec surprise et enthousiasme que jai découvert que .cut me citait dans son dossier de presse, donc je me permets à mon tour de me citer tout simplement : "Il s'agit d'une musique ambiante industrielle expérimentale allant crescendo, en ce sens qu'on a un son dont le rythme (on va dire plutôt la vitesse car ce n'était pas une musique rythmique) ou le bruit s'accroît/ s'enrichie/ s'intensifie au cours de la plage; des sons qui parfois font écho à de la "musique étrange 70", évoquant le film "Voyage au centre de la terre" ou encore le groupe Theatrum Chemicum". Cest en effet une description assez mystérieuse notemment pour le côté 70, le film et Theatrum Chemicum, car aujourdhui je ne vois rien qui pourrait my faire penser, et pourtant la description est assez claire puisquil sagit bien de parties progressives et répétitives avec une ambiance planante. Pourtant quelques années après, je pourrais décrire le style dune manière plus simple, peut-être que le groupe a changé mais en tout cas jarrive bien mieux à cerner le groupe, il sagit en fait de post-rock, oui ce style excellent qui semble se marier actuellement à tous les styles underground. En ce qui concerne .cut, il y a une touche dark ambient industrielle, comme si lambiant en était la base comme sur "Harry Truman will never die" ou on le sent bien.
Il est évident quune formation comme GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR! a eu un impact sur les deux protagonistes, car ici cest plus de linflucence de ce groupe quil sagit que dun Mono ou dun Mogwai. Je me rappelle dimpressions mitigées lors de ma découverte avec .cut, peut-être nétais-je pas prêt et trop dans le flou pour cerner la chose, mais il est aussi probable quavec le temps .cut a affiné son style car le résultat est là: les quatres titres proposés sont excellents. Il sagit en fait de titres inédits aux patronymes tous aussi mystérieux extraits de compilations parues en 2005 et 2006. Comme le veut le post-rock, il n y a pas de chant ici et pourtant une fois encore les titres sont loin dêtre brefs, on retrouve uniquement uniquement quelques voix samplées comme dans lexcellent "Theyre digging for oil, not looking for frankling" avec un sample probablement extrait dune séance dhypnose, alors que la tension de la musique va croissante alors que lesample se fait evanescent.
Il ny a dailleurs aucune percussions dans .cut, ce qui renforce ce côté hypnotique. L'atmosphère planante est evidemment également désenchantée, autre marque du post-rock. Ce groupe lyonnais après quelques années dactivité semble réellement proposé quelque chose dinteressant, de qualité et qui sort du lot; les amteurs aussi bien de post-rock que dambiant / atmosphérique devraient y être réceptifs.
Adnauseam - 9/10

Laurent - lahordenoire.free.fr - Juin 2006


.CUT FEATURING GIBET - Arctic Circle - (Obsolete Records) - 2006
 Chronique - le 09.06.2006 à 06h00 par Gaëtan S.
.CUT FEATURING GIBET (prononcer dotcut) est un duo lyonnais laptop/guitare qui n'a pas envie de rire. Forts de nombreuses démos, que ce soit sous l'entité .cut uniquement ou avec son compagnon Gibet, les deux compères nous donnent à voir avec les quatre titres d'Arctic Circle leur univers sombre et tendu.Ce qui frappe dès le début du disque, c'est la densité fournie par le son. Une masse épaisse et lourde qui flotte loin au dessus du sol, à une distance que l'on ne peut juger mais qui envahit tout l'espace qui nous entoure, entraînée par des nappes de guitares planantes, de samples de voix et de divers sons pouvant rappeler les grondements et la puissance d'une soirée orageuse ou d'un hélicoptère. Des lignes de guitares se détachent de ce socle pour flotter et porter la musique vers des univers évocateurs. C'est bercé par ce flot en perpétuel mouvement que l'on touche à la beauté de cette musique. Une beauté sombre, effrayante comme la guerre, attirante comme le chaos et déchirante comme la mort. Une beauté que l'on aimerait contempler mais que l'on ne peut pas voir, de celles qui réveillent les souffrances pour mieux apaiser.Quatre morceaux et vingt-trois minutes, ce n'est pas très long, pas plus que cette chronique. Mais s'il est difficile d'écrire sur cette musique, c'est qu'elle n'est pas de celles qui se partagent facilement, elle se vit, elle bouleverse et c'est ce qui la rend essentielle.

Gaëtan - www.mille-feuille.fr - Juin 2006