Kid Koala - (Electronica, Turntablism): For someone, that can not only be considered to make humorous and distinctively gleeful Turntable / Sample infused tracks. He's also an accomplished illustrator (he designs and draws all the art work for his albums). It would be unfair that suggest that he's anything but talented. Canadian, Kid Koala's music inhabits a small (& weird) niche within the Electronica / Turntable / Hip-hop genre, by using heavy (often Humorous) comedic sampling, a penchant for obscure jazz, random dialogue lifted from long forgotten Television and films, and a keen ear for melodic beats to earmark his music as truly distinctive.

It's understandable that some people will approach Koala's album with a sense of suspicion, as most albums that have a gimmick or are heavily built around humour tend to lack longevity (great for a the first year, but rarely returned to after that). Also because it is to some degree a 'Turntablist', album (although a resolutely quirky one), there the worry that it'll appeal only to Hip-Hop fans, and remain impenetrable to the rest of the world. Such concerns prove to be completely unfounded as Kid Koala proves to be a talented producer, rather than a Dj with fantastic skills, but no understanding of what makes a accessible record.

Firstly Koala sidesteps the pitfall of becoming repetitive by making sure he doesn't fall victim to artists that use amusing dialogue in their albums by refusing to overload the tracks with sampled dialogue. Instead he takes the more languish approach, interspersing snippets throughout the tracks, but intelligent enough with its use to make sure, that although the vocal samples are frequent, they are not overused, and in conjunction with the carefully arranged and deftly produced beats, Scratches (of which he proves to be superb with), instrument compositions, which lurch from Dusty Jazz, to Playful electronica, sped up Piano arrangements, Instrumental trip-hop, and skits built up into full blown tracks, aren't drowned out by a barrage of vocal samples. When the voice samples are used, and thus distracting from the actual music.

Kid Koala....from listening to his album, appears to share the feverish 'Crate Digging' hobbies as shared by Dj Shadow, as a lot of the (superb) beats, tracks, samples seem to reference Jazz that only hunting in basements for long since deleted vinyl would unearth. Most being directed sampled from various elements of: vaudeville Jazz, 50's Jazz, New Orleans Jazz, Swing and Classic jazz, and then cut-up and reworked (or sped up), mixed and cleaned up until its hardly resembles the original source material.

For evidence of this look at the goodtime swing of the loose deep cello sample that makes up the central beats behind "Fender Bender", with its bouncy rhythms, percussion-like scratches, and back-and forth dialogue interjecting every so often. It's superbly catchy for something with its tongue firmly in its cheek. (this was the first track I'd ever heard of Kid Koala's work, and convinced me to invest in buying the album).

"Naptime" takes a Hawaiian 'Hula-Hula' sample and completely runs away with it, by rearranging melodies to work within a Hip-Hop content, and overlaying deft scratching as a form of instrument, and clever looping of the samples to organise the track, to emerge into a truly coherent whole and perfectly orchestrated so that every buzz, bustle, bass sample & Hip-hop beat in perfectly in balance with the rest of the tracks and nothing ever sounds out of place.

"A Night at the Nufonia", feels like its a irregular take on 70's funk, by being as deliciously tongue-in-cheek with its samples, as the rest of the tracks, which can range from instructional and sound-effects records and comedy routines, through to expressive instrument loops steeped heavily in the chopped up jazz samples that he has painstakingly crafted. But it's the sublime implementation of guitar, and his sense of accessibility, and his virtuosity of a Dj, by appling layers of complexity to the simplest of ideas that make this truly memorable, and dizzyingly surreal. (check out the use of building a brief track around a looping Banjo riff, on the closing track "Roll Credits").

If you're someone that shares the view "Does Humour Belong in Music??", then you'll have a hard time appreciating whats on offer here. (No matter how superbly executed). Dj Food, Coldcut, The Avalanches, Dj Q-Bert share a (vaguely) similar approach with clever cut-&-Paste sampling with energetic turntable trickery, making excellently digestable music. (although none quite share, the quirky or strong humorous slant of "Kid Koala's" music).

Again, albums such of these, would usually (in lesser hands) have a limited shelf-life. As, what was funny or amusing the first 5 or 6 times, merely becomes irritating or hackneyed after multiple plays. But because Koala has the sense to allow the music to grow organically (well, as organically as samples will allow), rather than mindlessly placing vocal samples all over the place, his careful implementation of them impresses (and generally is chosen to fit the context of the music), and backed by a tremendous ear for a musical hook, whether it's a trumpet sample re-edited to make a loop, or a television jingle re-conditioned to form a instrumental track, or complex turntable trickery to intergrate a particularly surreal moment, into Hip-Hop/Trip-Hop. It's gonna take a tremendously Po-faced listener to not at least admire (even if they don't particularly like), what Koala's achevied here. And coupled with the broad accessibility, that seems to welcome everyone in for a listen, this is unquestionably a supremely confident and expertly produced record, and ranks amongst some of the labels ("Ninja Tunes") finest releases.

I like Kid Koala, but I would probably hate him if I was a DJ, in the same way that a marginally talented musician would hate a criminally gifted child prodigy. He did everything on this record by hand, i.e., no samplers or loops, which makes an additional testament to the incredible technical skill displayed in this album (which barely lasts longer than a sitcom). In an interview he said that this cd was his place to put all the stuff he couldn't use at parties, which is evidently a whole friggin lot of stuff. I guess you could sum this album up by noting three things: obscure vocal samples and such, feverish scratching and manual looping chops that make my non dj wrists hurt, and enough strong head bobbing beats to fill...something small. It has a good sense of humor and a fiercely unique sound which may grow thin with repeated listening, but the gimmick is welcome if you approach it wanting to be amazed by the unusual showoff stylings of one of the world's best djs. But if you want the usual fast rhythmic stuff over loud hip hop beats listen to Q-Bert.

After listening to this record the 3rd time, it dawned on me that every noise, every bustle, every tweet and buzz I hear in my head, is so perfectly organized into a grand orchestra and put on CD. The beat is solid, and the music seems to be composed with such abandon.

Kid Koala, who is also a member of the band Bullfrog, is simply one of the most creative DJs spinning today. This is an esoteric little record, for those of us who can appreciate the nuances of the turntables. The record is a slew of inside jokes and innuendos. Regardless, it really is a fun listen for just about anyone, but especially geeks of all ilk.

But beware, this is bad background music. If you're looking for some DJ music that you can put on and ignore move on to something else, something by Amon Tobin perhaps, because the beats and sample on this record grab the attention and need to be listened to carefully to be appreciated.

I bought this CD because I loved Koala's work on Deltron 3030. His DJing skills impressed me over everything on that album and so I thought this DJ CD would be similar to the awesome stuff on there and I decided to buy it. However, all that 90% of this CD is, is abstract sounds and sound clips. Most of the tracks lack rhythem/melody. It's trying so hard to be different but lacks almost the whole musical aspect. Download the full songs and you'll see what I mean. The only track I can say that was kick ... on this CD would be, "Roboshuffle" and if the whole album had that type of a feel, it would be a lot better and I'd probably end up giving it a 3 star rating, but unfortunatly the CD is nothing like that for the most part. If you're thinking about buying this, download the tracks and think it through again because I would say it's very likely that you'll think this is a pretty stale album like I did.