You got yer, yer stacks of wax, but you don’t expect hot-

Kid Koala: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Kid Koala is a scratch god in the way Malmsteen is a guitar god. A wizard on the wheels of steel. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is an exhibition of his technical skill, pure, long division turntablism with great care taken to display all the work that went into making it, no dulling of sharp corners. It differs from instrumental hip-hop in that it’s so vigorous and busy that it was clearly never intended to have anyone rapping over it. The voice of the album belongs to the samples, beginning with the immortal ’stacks of wax’ clip also used on Endtroducing….., carrying it a bit further to note ‘we’re nothing but the nerds they say we are.’ It is a nerdy album, no bones about it. Packaged with the comic book adventures of Kid Koala and ninja granny, the heart and soul of the album is its silly, wacky humour, developed through samples from sound fx, ‘how to pick up girls’, stand up comedy, and other novelty records, self-conscious and self-referential. It’s the feel of down-in-the-trenches DJing recreated in studio by hand, ground-up assembling. “Nerdball” builds the scratching up from its building blocks into a frantic pace, throws in chops and beats and demonstrates the complex nature of the cutting to be taking place, before the more seamless and deep-grooving “Fender Bender” takes us into more conceptual, fully constructed territory. On “Drunk Trumpet” he stretches and slows sound down to make it sound drunken and warped. Over the course of the album, the cuts and scratches become more smooth and hidden, just peculiar in juxtapositioning. He works tape damage effects into “Naptime” to stretch the samples into a lullaby sound, then uses the scratching to emulate animal sounds. “A Night at the Nufonia” is a great piece with the best laugh of the album, ‘and that of course is what he deserved for pretending to be a musician when he was only a butcher.’ “Temple of Gloom” is a beautifully warped mood piece in between bits of a comedy routine about foley effects. “Scurvy” is a slumped, low horror song complete with voice over from Vincent Price. Perhaps in the end, it’s not a lot more than a style exercise, but it’s still undeniably fun.

***1/2

~ by jshopa on October 27, 2008.