Cutler also collaborated with pianist Neil Ardley, singer Robert Wyatt, guitarist Fred Frith, and musicians David Toop and Steve Beresford.

[3] He cited his childhood as the source of his artistic temperament, recalling a sense of displacement when his younger brother was born: "Without that I would not have been so screwed up as I am, and therefore not as creative.

[8] He gained popularity playing songs where he would often accompany himself on either a piano or the harmonium,[8] and this success led to the release of a series of records starting with 1959's Ivor Cutler of Y'Hup EP.

[10] In the film, Cutler plays would-be courier Buster Bloodvessel[11] who becomes passionately attracted to Ringo Starr's Aunt Jessie.

The album, taking inspiration from trad jazz and boogie-woogie, sees Cutler playing the piano as well as his usual harmonium, and is considered the most traditionally musical of all his records.

[13] Cutler contributed the track "Brooch Boat" to the cult 1980 album Miniatures, produced and edited by Morgan Fisher, which consisted entirely of one-minute-long recordings.

In the 1990s, Creation Records released two new volumes of poems and spoken word work: A Wet Handle (1997) and A Flat Man (1998).

[16] Cutler was a noted eccentric, dressing in a distinctive style including plus-fours and hats adorned with many badges, travelling mainly by bicycle and often communicating by means of sticky labels printed with "Cutlerisms", one of which, "never knowingly understood" came to be applied by supporters and detractors alike (the latter phrase is a play on 'never knowingly undersold', which was for many years the slogan of the John Lewis Partnership).

Composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jim O'Rourke covered Cutler's 1983 song "Women of the World" on his album Eureka (1999).

In October 2012 in Seattle, Washington, the Mark Morris Dance Group premiered a work entitled "Wooden Tree," featuring recordings of Cutler's renditions of his songs.