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Following the demise of CUT TUNES, Gary Cut took time out from the music scene to decide where, artistically, he wanted to go next. A chance meeting with fellow Welsh musician, producer and old friend Dewi Evans at a party early in 1994 sowed the seeds of what was to become, initially, CUT 2023. Dewi had just come home to North Wales after a few years working in London with his band Technomania, and was already starting to achieve cult status on the Welsh language music scene as one half of the mutant cabaret duo, Rheinallt H. Rowlands. Gary was deeply impressed with the huge production values that Dewi was achieving with Rheinallt's music, and what started out at the party as a mutual appreciation of each other's work ended up being a conversation about the possibility of actually working together on a new project. With Gary's background in Industrial soundscapes and huge technoprimitive rhythms and Dewi's background in dance and orchestral arrangements the two felt they had a potential musical monster on their hands.
Shortly afterwards they got together in Dewi's studio and tried out a few ideas. At it's height CUT TUNES achieved it's awesome power by utilizing a huge wall of drums and metal percussion, raw bass and power guitar riffs but it was virtually impossible to reproduce that primeval power in the studio. Now Gary wanted to try the opposite approach - create a massive keyboard and computer-generated sound in the studio and then adapt it for live use and Dewi was just the person to do this.
The first three songs that Gary and Dewi worked on were The Tower of Eyes, Savage Blue and a reworking of the classic unreleased CUT TUNES track Cocoon Head. The two musicians soon developed an almost telepathic way of working together in the studio and ideas for the music flowed profusely. The first three songs were huge, dramatic and were a fascinating blend of Gary's dark doom-laden Industrial musings and Dewi's love of electro-pop. By now Gary had launched the project as CUT 2023 - named after a date set aside for the end of the world and also a reference to his fascination with the 23 Enigma. English and Welsh language vocals were added at Gorwel Owen's Stiwdio Ofn with the Welsh language versions appearing as a studio session on Ian Gill's popular Radio Cymru show in Spring '94. It was Gill who coined the phrase "Music for Armageddon" to describe this new massive computer-generated sound and reaction to the session was immediate throughout Wales. Top Welsh language artist Steve Eaves - who also trained at the Sakura Shotokan Karate Club in Caernarfon with Gary - was impressed enough to invite CUT 2023 to support him at a prestigious gig at the Eisteddfod in Rhyl during the Summer. Gary and Dewi then set to work on several more songs - adapting the studio tracks for live use - and the gig took place with Dewi on keyboards and Gary on metal percussion, tom toms and vocals on top of backing tracks. Through a big PA the overall effect was huge - Gary's live drums and percussion on top of the metronome-precise backing tracks creating the effect of two "real" drummers.
Gary then set about promoting CUT 2023 outside Wales and amongst others, sent demo material out to German Industrial label CCP. At the time CCP were one of Europe's top independent Industrial/New Beat labels and were also closely involved with the very influential Belgian music magazine Side Line.
CCP's UK Managing Director Darrell Hughes immediately contacted Gary and could scarcely hide his enthusiasm, stating that CUT 2023 were producing the most exciting music ever to have come out of Wales and the label wanted to release a full length album. Gary and Dewi then spent the next seven months locked in the studio producing six more tracks - Erotikon, Word Made Blood, Temple Head Despair, Ysbryd Metel, Island of the Dead and Some Ghosts Rising. The end result - Metal Ghosts - didn't disappoint the label and once again Darrell Hughes gushed out compliments. An album's worth of material showed that CUT 2023 were producing, in Hughes' words, some of the most exciting and revolutionary music of the last ten years. Everything seemed to be falling into place - Gary and Dewi were preparing to fly over to Germany to clinch the deal when once again the CUT hoodoo struck and the deal fell through. According to Darrell Hughes, the label wanted CUT 2023 to sign as they could see big things ahead for the project, but the label's distributors had other ideas. While Gary and Dewi were producing the album, news filtered through to CCP's distributors that one of the members of Industrial legends Front 242 was working on a solo project and seeing dollar signs flashing in front of their eyes the distributors put pressure on CCP to sign him instead of the untried CUT 2023. The label had to capitulate and Gary and Dewi lost out.
The two musicians had dealt with major disappointments in the past with their previous projects and had become very wary about dealing with labels again. It had taken a lot to overcome that wariness and believe that CCP were genuine so the way in which the label called the deal off at the eleventh hour was particularly damaging. Several irate phone calls to the label's UK rep failed to clarify the situation.
Gary and Dewi tried to get something positive out of the whole affair - at least they'd produced an album's worth of very strong and dynamic material and their brief involvement with CCP had attracted a fair bit of publicity for them on mainland Europe.
It was shortly after this that Gary decided on a change of approach to CUT 2023's music. He had always been a reluctant vocalist and was starting to get frustrated at not being able to concentrate fully on playing drums and metal percussion to full effect live so started entertaining the notion of getting in a new vocalist. He couldn't imagine another male taking over the role - if a new vocalist was to come in it would have to be a female one as Gary also felt that the way in which the music was developing a female vocalist would add a new slant and originality to the sound and lyrics.
The search for a new singer led Gary to locally-based vocalist Betsan Williams, who as well as having once played keyboards for cult Icelandic band The Sugarcubes was also a well-established vocalist on the Welsh language circuit. Due to the time and effort Gary and Dewi had already spent producing Metal Ghosts they decided not to waste the material and began reworking the album with Williams singing in 1997. Things began relatively smoothly - Betsan's haunting vocals adding a new depth and strength to the Metal Ghosts project. By the end of '98 the album was nearly finished and the name of the band had been trimmed down to CUT 23. The trio had also played a number of local gigs to perfect the live set-up and did a live video and interview for the Channel 4 Wales music programme Garej.
Betsan then fell pregnant and CUT 23's progress was held up for 16 months. Activities were resumed in 2000 and the album was finally completed later that year. The bad experience that Gary and Dewi had with CCP left them determined not to deal with labels again and so Gary set up a new label - NAGA Records - to release Metal Ghosts and future planned CUT 23 product. The album was released in Wales in Autumn 2001 and released globally in Jan 2002 and was met with, on the whole, critical acclaim. Gary was concerned about the fact that Betsan had been unable to adapt her vocal style to suit Cocoon Head - one of the album's strongest tracks - with the result that it ended up being dropped in favour of one of her own compositions - Du A Gwyn. In context with the overall concept of the album the track seemed out of place and subsequent reviews of the album tended to prove that Gary's concerns were justified.
By now, things weren't going too smoothly behind the scenes. Although CUT 23 was getting regular airplay and media interviews in Wales - as well as another video performance for Channel 4 Wales in Nov 2000 - things were becoming very strained between the 3 musicians. In addition to this after the completion of the album and the time came to work on new material the next songs recorded under the CUT 23 banner were written by the singer and produced by Dewi - with Gary having no creative input at all. By now Metal Ghosts was starting to attract attention outside Wales and at a time when it was essential for the music to continue down the specific path that Gary had created, Dewi and Betsan appeared to be taking it somewhere else. Feeling increasingly isolated from his own project, one final development behind the scenes was the final straw for Gary and he made the difficult decision to pull the plug and go solo. Shortly afterwards Dewi and Betsan also ended their working relationship.
Metal Ghosts was to become a soundtrack for the four turbulent years Gary, Dewi and Betsan spent working together. Described in some circles as a flawed masterpiece, Metal Ghosts contains no shortage of spine-tingling moments and on the whole is an excellent example of angst-ridden Dark Electronica. Some of Betsan's vocal performances - particularly on tracks like Erotikon and Some Ghosts Rising - were breathtaking, whereas tracks like Word Made Blood actually worked better with Gary's original aggressive vocals.
Whatever the history books will make of CUT 23 and Metal Ghosts, it was to provide a vital stepping stone and learning process between CUT TUNES and CUT 72.
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