Koala Tested, Mother Approved

With His New Album, Deejay Kid Koala's Still Scratching That Itch

originally published March 28, 2007

In the year 2007, turntables seem a little… well, quaint, to say the least. Particularly when two are placed side by side as a vehicle for actually creating music. The whole turntablism scene saw its star flare brightest and, unfortunately, briefest during the late '90s, when being into the Invisibl Skratch Piklz and scratch battles was the cool du jour. As with nearly every genre (even ska), turntablism's still around and thriving in its nook, although these days most of its practitioners are keeping it "old-school." Too bad, but understandable due to the thoroughly analog nature of the turntable and the ancient dust-covered whimsy of the vinyl record. Anything now that doesn't involve RAM might as well be ragtime jazz, it seems.

But then there are the few, the proud, those who maintain vitality within their art, no matter what trends are en vogue. Canada's Kid Koala is a prime example. The former child prodigy first broke into the headphone and head-bobbing scene in 1997, making his debut as a kid of barely 21 years on the revered Ninja Tune label. His career has flourished since then, with consistency and subtle reinvention marking his progress. His latest, the aptly and awesomely titled Your Mom's Favorite DJ, is just different enough from his past work to rule while staying the same enough to satisfy that increasingly hard to scratch turntable itch. And most importantly, it sounds like vintage vinyl wine while clearly avoiding the water-treading "old-school" fallback. Eric San (as the deejay's favorite mom calls him) kindly took a half-hour slice of a Montreal day to share some ruminations on the new record as well as nostalgia for those damned "good old days."

The aptness of the album's title is clear, in that San's trademark sense of humor and penchant for intriguing narrative frameworks in his music make for some potentially generation-bridging tunes. My mom listens to gospel and country with only Cher to represent the rest of music's spectrum, but I can imagine even her tolerating Your Mom's Favorite DJ, maybe even tapping her foot to the beat if she thought I couldn't see it. You'll find very little in the way of tired lightning scratching, which has always been one of the Kid's major selling points. San is not interested in wowing you with his mad skillz. He wants to engage you, and the fact that he's utilizing others' music in order to weave a quilt of his own doesn't change the fact that music should be… musical, with actual substance.

San's always been something of an outsider, and starting out at such a young age in far-off Vancouver, British Columbia, is certainly telling. "In a big way, it was a blessing, because I didn't have a lot of guys standing over me telling me I was scratching incorrectly," he says. "I was never connected with anything like a scene. There was a time when the Internet didn't exist, and I was just on my own, a 12-year-old kid fascinated with figuring out all these sounds." A boy's paper route had finally paid off with a cheap set of turntables, and the prodigy never looked back.

Upon waxing wistful over that wireless-less bygone era, San reflects upon that late-'90s boom in the art of the deejay. "I started in '88, and outside of a bit part in the hip-hop scene, there was never any real pretense then of it being a profession or even semi-profession," he says. "So 10 years later, it was strange. It was cool while it lasted, and now all those deejays might not be on magazine covers, but there's still some interesting stuff being done."

CD turntables are becoming more and more common; as with any turntablist, and rightfully so, the inevitable question of "the purity of vinyl" comes into play. Koala puts it brilliantly when he describes the record as an instrument: "The crackle and the skip, that's the sound and character of a vinyl record. It's like a finger sliding down the fretboard of a guitar or a singer inhaling between lines. It's not the same without that raw human element. When you hear the finger tapping during a spinback, that's just it."

San explains the narrative arc of his records as something he never strove for, but rather a product of being trained classically then learning to compose harmonically with records. "That's not something I was thinking about as a 12-year-old. It was more like, 'What crazy tricks can I do?'" he says. "But it's just me trying to figure out how to use vinyl, make all these bits and pieces of records form some sort of story."

Koala's records remain vibrant today mainly due to that narrative aspect, the sense of listening to an honest-to-God album that is best taken as a whole. 2003's Nufonia Must Falltook it a step further by including a graphic novel to illustrate the record. That's why Your Mom's Favorite DJis divided into two lengthy suites or acts, further focusing the scope of the music into one hearty meal rather than mere pieces of ear candy. There's a required investment in order to reap this great album's rewards, and that two 15-minute segments can in our world actually be referred to as "investments" of time is sad indeed. Koala will make your most valuable asset well spent. It's certainly leagues beyond staring at a sitcom.

It's bold for San to, within a medium too often obsessed with technical proficiency, release music that says so much using mismatched jigsaw puzzle pieces. The turntable has a real importance in music still, and it goes well past the novelty factor, the aw-shucks sweetness of past analog years. San is entirely correct in stating the unique irony and beauty of the turntable, a machine that can produce such sheer fun as well as thought. If that seventh drooled-over Harry Potter book had been written using only taped-together scraps of college essays, love letters and shopping lists penned by hundreds of hands, the result might be the literary equivalent of Kid Koala, and what he has achieved once again with Your Mom's Favorite DJ.

Michael Wehunt

WHO: Kid Koala, DJ Ganesh, DJ Killacut
WHERE: Tasty World
WHEN: Saturday, March 31
HOW MUCH: $10