The Slits - Cut

The Slits’ infamous debut album is a master class in pure attitude. Merely touching the record will imbue you with the kind of witty, slightly weary cynicism that’s always seemed so unobtainable.

And when you realise that The Slits were the UK’s first all female punk/ post-punk band, you suddenly understand why ‘Cut’ is infused with such authenticity. Not only is The Slits’ sound a rebellion against the musical landscape of the time, it’s also a reaction to the almost exclusively male punk scene.

The sounds are raw. The vocals are raw. The dub-base - all chopping guitars and reggae rhythms interspersed with keys and the occasional recorder - is loose. Songs speed up and slow down. It’s all at once awkward and vital and unconventional, which just makes it all the more powerful.

As you might expect from three women very much operating in a man’s world, most of the songs offer razor-sharp (if you’ll forgive the pun…) insight mixed with some truly awesome scorn. ‘Ping Pong Affair’ is a real stand-out in this respect, “life with or without you, so I spend an evening, without getting my face cut, and another evening, without getting run over”. But even the former is trumped by the sardonic genius of ‘Typical Girls’, with its “don't create, don't rebel, have intuition, don't drive well” refrain.

The political nature of the record doesn’t stop there. Ari’s shrill of “I can’t but wonder what’s feeding my screen, what’s feeding my screen?” during ‘FM’ is an observation on media culture that’s as pertinent now as it was back in the late 1970s.

Consumer culture gets the treatment too, ‘Spend Spend Spend’ and ‘Shoplifting’ are as amusing as they are astute, in fact, the opening of the latter is immortal: “put the cheddar in the pocket, put the rest under the jacket, talk to the cashier, he won’t suspect… ten quid for the lot, we pay fuck all!”

Released in 1979, the record is as crucial now as it ever was. ‘Cut’ absolutely reeks of cool. It’s a wry, intelligent and entirely organic snapshot of a band at the very top of their game, and the very height of their genre.