>>PREVIEW
KID KOALA
Saturday, October 28
Broken City
When describing his craft, Kid Koala speaks in metaphors. Known for his deft ability to weave often disparate samples together into magical multi-track stories, Kid Koala a.k.a. Eric San likens finding the right sample to a multitude of romantic descriptions; lost orphans float around in the ether of his studio, aimless until they find a home upon his turntables. Survivors of a sinking ship adrift in the ocean trying to find the rest of their doomed shipmates clinging to an iceberg and, most eloquently, a speed-dating service.
"The way I’ve been presenting it to make the most sense to people that have no idea about DJ culture is that all the records are single people and the studio is the weirdest dating service ever," laughs San. "It makes a lot of sense because if you think of it in those terms you know that it can always go well or go horribly awkward. Regardless of that, I left the awkward parts of the album in. It’s a lot like speed dating. Speed-dating for records."
Mixing samples of hip hop beats, silent movie soundtracks, spoken word and scratch-created melodies, San has developed quite a name for himself since signing to U.K. record label Ninja Tune more than a decade ago. As the story goes, a bootleg cassette copy of San’s mix tape Scratchcratchratchatch found its way into the rental car stereo of Jon More – co-owner of Ninja Tune and half of Coldcut – during a visit to Montreal. Upon signing, multiple tours followed with San sharing the stage with the likes of Coldcut, DJ Food and DJ Vadim. But it was in 1998 when San was invited to join retro-keyboardist Money Mark for the Beastie Boys’ Hello Nasty world tour that Kid Koala was really born. The gig also kicked off a career of collaborations that reads like a bibliography of cool, from working with Medeski, Martin and Wood, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Gorillaz and Peanut Butter Wolf to opening for Radiohead and most recently The Flaming Lips.
With that kind of stage pedigree, San has still managed to stay focused and intent on why he started scratching in the first place. It was cool.
"I was around 12 or 13 years old in Vancouver," remembers San. "I was tagging along with my older sister who was buying Cure records and Depeche Mode records at the time. I didn’t really know anything about music. I was a little kid. Music was what I practised on the piano and what my parents listened to. I was riding my bike and lighting firecrackers. But around 1988 I somehow heard scratching for the first time and thought ‘wow, this is amazing.’ For some kids it was skateboarding or basketball or chess. But for me it was scratch DJing."
Years later, the childlike glee for his craft is still intact, but now coupled with an almost maestro-like conception of sound and samples.
"I’m always listening on three different levels," says San. "I listen to records first for what they were trying to do. And then I listen to them in how they can be layered and re-organized. I listen for tools. And then the last way I listen to records is for the humanity of it."
A strange way to listen San admits. However, with his ear constantly searching for that perfect sample, extraordinary things can happen – like water buffalo noises in a slow, dreamy ballad. Interestingly enough, many of the samples have a lot to do with context.
"I actually listen to records and imagine what it was like to make that record," says San. "I get a kick out of that. I have this record of venereal disease experts done by the CBC. It’s just them talking about gonorrhea, syphilis and genital warts and things like that. I wonder what the recording session would have been like. I mean, there’s five STD experts sitting in a room all at a round table, each with a microphone. There’s probably an engineer there making sure the levels aren’t peaking. And then I’m there. I’m no expert on STDs, but I almost could be now. You get drawn into it. You’re suddenly connected to this event that happened in the eighties in some CBC building somewhere."
"I wonder what they all did after the session. Did they go for beers? I mean that’s what I do when I’m playing with bands. If we knock off a good take, we high five each other and go get some pizza. So I wonder, did they socialize after the session? The other question is where the hell did this come from? I probably found it in a Salvation Army. Some poor doctor is now probably missing his top spin."
You won’t find STD samples on his latest offering Your Mom’s Favourite DJ, but San is adamant there’s something for everyone, though he has difficulty deciding exactly how to describe it.
"I want this album to be the facilitator of fun," laughs San. "It’s for cleaning the house. It’s an adventure in records. It’s a tool for smile making." |
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