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Kid KoalaCarpel Tunnel Syndrome [Ninja Tune] Rating: 7.6 Influenced by turntable culture, and more specifically Kid Koala's enthralling new album, I present you Pitchfork's first remix review. Sources are footnoted. It was Picasso who once said that talent borrows and genius steals. (1) Yesterday it snowed ten inches, keeping me from the one I wanted to be with. Wet powder-fluffy water kept me inside my brick house, where brownouts dipped the lighting in fading winks. Remarkable how something so light can crush you with enough accumulation. (2) The power comes through the wrist. The flick of the wrist, not brute strength, will grant power and grace. As you progress the action becomes seemingly more random, yet this will be letting go to instinct. What appears to be drunken twitching will be the agile dance of the advanced game-- led by the flicks of the wrist. (3) "Strut Hear" starts the record off with warbling epileptic vinyl manipulation. It sounds as if Kid Koala's scratching finger has a tiny whammy bar attached to it, and a smaller, tertiary arm grows off the top of his wrist, reaching over to pound away on the tiny finger whammy bar. Samples shimmer. He might be a beast. Is he wearing gloves? Pull them off and discover hands branching off fingers, arms sprouting from palms, needles for fingernails. (4)
"You don't like it." He has the mind of a child. He reads comic books. He makes comic books. He hides in the hood of his sweatshirt. He scribbles. He doodles. His notebook is filled with doodling. This is academia. He will not get far in music theory if he continues to dawdle. (6) Great works of noise don't lend themselves to regular rotation or top ten lists. You have to be open to the possibility of being accosted by it. (7)
"Oh my god. I'm covered. Covered in scratches." Admittedly, they're a bit overly positive and kiss-ass, being shoulder-angels and all, but this music really is what we shoulder-angels want to hear. (9)
Thais prefer a more aesthetic name for their nation's capitol: Krung Thep, "City of Angels."
However Krung Thep is actually an abbreviation. The real name is so long that a song was
written to make it easier for Thai children to memorize. Try saying this five times fast:
Krungthep Maha Makhon Amon Ratanakosin Mahinthra Ayutthaya Maha Dilok Phopnop Praratana
Ratchathani Burirom Udom Ratchaniwet Maha Sathan Amon Phiman Awatan Sathit Sakkakhantiya
Wisanukam Prasit.
"I feel for you. I really do." Songs universally portray a surreal, nightmarish place seen through the eyes of a child, as if Glenn Branca composed a soundtrack to "Where the Wild Things Are." (12) They are wild animals. Don't let the cute looks fool you. Have you ever heard the koala? They constantly make noise. Constant guttural noises that turn into freakish beats. Funky whining wails through the nostrils. Rodent-like screeches burst at random for the fatty body. It's both animal and robotic. Like nothing you've ever heard. (13) If you're not into drum-n-bass, you're gonna hate it. Likewise, if you're not into Miles Davis, it's gonna suck ass. On the other hand, if you really dig both, you'll find some redeeming qualities here. (14) "Man, I just got my car modified to bounce and installed a $9,455 sound system! I want some bass!" you might say. Not necessary. This album impresses by other means than loud, repetitious thumping. Throughout the record, he samples and scratches off a number of different obscure pieces of vinyl and a few other media sources as well." (15) Dumbest Cheerleader: "It's, like, really sorta catchy but, like, sorta... like, weird in that Beck way or that, like, early 80's way. There isn't enough guitar. I, like, like a lot of guitar." (16) Today my dad brought home this stuff called "Scrapple" from the grocery store. It's a meat by-product that comes from the least desirable parts of pig. It's popular in small circles in the Northeast. Its ingredients read "pork shoulder, pork tongue, pork hearts, pork parts." (17) Wow, somehow you managed to turn a bunch of random ingredients into a delicious flavor explosion! (18) That's the beauty of carpal tunnel syndrome. You no longer have to work as hard. Simply say, "carpal tunnel syndrome," and you can sit back and relax. A new world has been opened to you. Smoke. Eat a donut. Dance around your cubicle. For at least a little while, your mundane grind will be alleviated. (19) He grinds beats like a butcher. He deftly injects space into sampled music. The strewn pixels of sound make little sense on their own, but taken as a whole build into a twinkling constellation of humorous turntable music. To sound this lazy and perfectly loose you must first develop skills to perfection. Only then can they be shattered. Kid Koala knows that ninjas must master kung-fu before they can move on to drunken kung-fu. (4)
Nancy: "Is it a rock concert?" The butcher had struck again. The musician's intestines laid strewn across the dressing room. She found the gore strangely beautiful. The Butcher was entropy. The Butcher rearranged God's creation in a steaming red mess on the floor. The walls pulsed from the pounding drums. (21) You see, Henry, the (22) Needle (4) is mightier than the sword. (22)
1- Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs in "Pirates of Silicon Valley", TNT, 1999.
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