Despite his name Kid Koala is not the latest hot prospect from down under! It's Eric San who grew up in British Columbia and has been a long time recording artist for Ninja Tune, a British label that I used to worship back in the late nineties, especially Coldcut, Amon Tobin and DJ Vadim. Kid was on early releases by them before his official debut Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in 2000. He also draws comics and has included his artwork as part of the music career before. I remember a show at First Avenue where he had us play bingo on cards that he'd designed! So it's interesting now that his latest project, actually released nearly a year ago, is called "Music To Draw To: Satellite". It's not the first time he's collaborated, he's a part of Deltron 3030 and Handsome Boy Modelling School, with Dan The Automator, a kind of Gorillaz-like project, on whose debut album they both appeared. But he's never written lyrics before and had them sung by one other person throughout an album.

We interviewed Emiliana Torrini in Arkureyri Iceland for the Airwaves Festival while she was singing with The Colorist, a nine piece collective who make some of their own instruments. She expressed delight and surprise that when they approached her to cover or re-work some of her early work, they didn't choose her hits but actually some of her favorite tunes which she had perceived as being under-appreciated. You might remember her biggest 'hit album' over here back in 1999 Love In The Time Of Science. The track "Unemployed in Summertime" made it to #63 on the UK charts.

So it was simply by name recognition that I purchased this album on one of my summer Electric Fetus trips, on a whim. It was before I even thought I could meet Emiliana and when I did I didn't have time to ask her about it at all. She did say that she'd grown tired of many of the requests for collaboration that came her way, so why this one? Perhaps because of the creation story... It's the first time that Kid Koala composed the songs on traditional instruments rather than his favored turntables, at special live events where people were actually drawing! As a first time lyricist some of them can come off as twee and idealistic, but Emiliana's delivery saves them.

Resources

Kid Koala - Official Site

Related

• Watch Emiliana Torrini and The Colorist perform at Iceland Airwaves