Best known for his work with English avant-rock group Henry Cow, Cutler was also a member and drummer of other bands, including Art Bears, News from Babel, Pere Ubu and (briefly) Gong/Mothergong.

He has collaborated with many musicians and groups, including Fred Frith, Lindsay Cooper, Zeena Parkins, Peter Blegvad, Telectu and The Residents, and has appeared on over 100 recordings.

Cutler also assembled and released The 40th Anniversary Henry Cow Box Set (2009), a collection of over 10 hours of previously unreleased recordings by the band.

In 1966 he joined a band called Louise, with Tony Durant (later of Fuchsia), which performed on the London psychedelic club circuit for three years before breaking up.

This put him in touch with a number of musicians which led to Cutler and keyboardist Dave Stewart of Egg forming The Ottawa Music Company, a 26 piece rock composer's orchestra, in 1971.

[6] Henry Cow had been formed in 1968 by Cambridge University students Fred Frith (guitar) and Tim Hodgkinson (woodwind and keyboards).

[a] After Henry Cow disbanded in 1978, Cutler created Recommended Records in London, an independent label and distribution network for RIO artists.

In 1982, Cutler co-founded the Anglo-German group Cassiber (1982–1992) with German musicians Heiner Goebbels, Alfred Harth and Christoph Anders.

With guest musicians (including Robert Wyatt and Sally Potter) they made two critically acclaimed studio albums, but did not perform live.

Cutler wrote the song texts and played drums, while Glandien composed and performed the music with samplers and computers.

The supporting musicians were Dagmar Krause (vocals), Fred Frith (bass and guitar) and Alfred Harth (saxophone and clarinet).

Cutler collaborated with Glandien again in 1994 to record Scenes from no Marriage and to participate in p53, a commission for the 25th Frankfurt Jazz Festival with Zygmunt Krauze, Marie Goyette, Otomo Yoshihide.

The (ec) Nudes were a band Cutler, Wädi Gysi (guitar) and Amy Denio (vocals, bass, saxophone, accordion) formed in 1993.

The trio recorded Vanishing Point, a CD of songs with texts by Cutler and music by Gysi and Denio, and toured all over Europe and visited Brasil.

In 1998, he joined John Wolf Brennan's sextet "HeXtet" to record a series of poetry settings, from Edgar Allan Poe to contemporary Irish poets like Theo Dorgan and Paula Meehan, together with legendary singer Julie Tippetts, saxophonist Evan Parker, trombonist Paul Rutherford and clarinetist Peter Whyman.

[15] Other musicians and bands Cutler has performed and recorded with over the years include Tim Hodgkinson, Lindsay Cooper, Peter Blegvad, John Greaves, René Lussier, Jean Derome, Tom Cora, Aksak Maboul, The Residents, The Work, Duck and Cover, Les 4 Guitaristes de l'Apocalypso-Bar, Kalahari Surfers, Hail, Biota and Brainville 3.

In 2015 he collaborated with Alfred Harth founding a group Hope, a commission for the 46th Frankfurt Jazz Festival with Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Mitsuru Nasuno.

He had also begun using cheap guitar transducers and a table full of additional wired objects (pans, metal trays, small tambours and egg-slicers).

Cutler experimented briefly with drum pads triggered to play sampled or synthesized sounds, but quickly dismissed this option because he found them unresponsive and inflexible.

[16] In the early 1980s, Chris Cutler became active in the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM) and started giving talks and participating in symposia throughout the world.