Following three decades into an unparalleled career, Kid Koala continues to grow his immersive this-dimensional real-life cartoon musical universe with each orbit around the sun. The world renowned DJ, composer, and lifelong visual storyteller also known as Eric San has announced his latest foray into the depths of “creating things to joyfully connect people.” Entitled Creatures Of The Late Afternoon, the new double album is the soundtrack to an accompanying board game centered around a cast of creatures who band together through the power of music to save their habitat from destruction. Built integrally into the vinyl gatefold jacket, the board game is set at a communal hub of DIY recording studios where various bands of creatures collaborate to explore different ways of expressing and enjoying music.
Creatures Of The Late Afternoon is what San calls “a journey through some of my favourite musical universes through the turntables.” What started as a testing ground for creating turntable tracks in different styles took shape as the score to an action film-inspired love story. The resulting album, a twenty-track two-disc set of instrumental jaunts, featured guest vocalists, and robot hotel interludes, Creatures Of The Late Afternoon furthers Kid Koala’s experimentation in electric, beat-driven, groove-laden, self-sampling, heartrending-even-if-its-heavy, purely beautiful music.
Leading up to the vinyl’s full release on April 14, 2023, Kid Koala will reveal the album in four stages. The first EP is available for purchase today, along with the first single from the album, “Jump & Shuffle (Live At The Hardware Store)” – a classic Kid Koala track hearkening back to the infectious uprock atmosphere of the timeless “Skanky Panky” off Some Of My Best Friends Are DJs. Lead by layers of ensemble record scratching and warped whistle melodies, Kid Koala summons the creatures on this joyous and endlessly catchy strut in the late day sun.
Kid Koala says: “This is the most playful and dynamic album I’ve done to date. It was a fun time in the studio, exploring the writing/recording process in this way. There is a wide range of moods on the tracks in terms of both energy and emotion and I’m excited about how the music has turned out. Now I can’t wait to get working on the stage production!”
San performed and recorded all the instruments in his Montreal studio – including turntables, piano, drums, bass, synthesizer, saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, vibraphone, hammond organ, electric guitar, clavinet, drum machine, tremoloa, banjo, upright bass, timpani, harmonica, theremin, wurlitzer electric piano, rhodes piano, CP70 piano, percussion, tape loop splicing, modular sequencing, modem, and effects – then cut the stems to vinyl on his homespun record lathe, and reassembled them on turntables into the uplifting yet sentimental sonic adventure at hand.
PRE-ORDER VINYL WITH BOARD GAME NOW
Kid Koala has built an ever-expanding web of artistic universes that dart across disciplines yet always coalesce in Eric San’s singular mindspace. Since starting as a scratch DJ in 1994, Kid Koala has transformed the turntable into a tool of expression, continuously challenging the idea of genre, always unfolding new pages of his singular artistic roadmap. Already including a constellation of immersive visual projects like his theatrical cinema experiences Nufonia Must Fall and The Storyville Mosquito, Kid Koala expresses his unique creative vision with a multidimensional intersection of sound, image, and emotion. From his award-winning graphic novel Space Cadet, to the interactive audience rituals of his Vinyl Vaudeville events, the Satellite Turntable Orchestra launched from his ambient Music To Draw To records, plus the breakdance video game Floor Kids, each new addition to Kid Koala’s portfolio charts a fascinating new course. The blueprint to a future stage show, Creatures Of The Late Afternoon is an inspiring addition to Kid Koala’s armful of spinning dubplates.
KID KOALA CREATURES OF THE LATE AFTERNOON TRACKLIST:
1. Hear Now
2. 1000 Towns (feat. Coelacanth)
3. The Frequencies
4. Robohotel 1
5. Things Are Gonna Change (feat. Lealani)
6. Dusk
7. P@$SwErdD
8. When U Say Love (feat. Crayfish)
9. Highs, Lows & Highways
10. Decades
11. Get Level (feat. Hammerhead)
12. Hyperion Station
13. Let’s Go!
14. Jump & Shuffle (live at the Hardware Store)
15. Once Upon a Time in the Northeast
16. The Cards (feat. Manta Ray)
17. Robohotel 2
18. Renaissance of Reconnaissance
19. Rise of the Tardigrades
20. Til We Meet Again (live at the Natural History Museum)
