Kid Koala announces 'Creatures of the Late Afternoon'

Kid Koala returns today with the announcement of a new album!

After thirty years of an unparalleled career, Kid Koala continues to evolve his immersive musical universe through each orbit around the sun. The world-renowned DJ, composer and visual storyteller, also known as Eric San, today announces his latest foray into the depths of creating things to happily connect people. Entitled Creatures Of The Late Afternoon, the new double album is the soundtrack to an accompanying board game, centring on a group of creatures who come together through the power of music to save their habitat from destruction. Embedded in the vinyl cover, the game is set in a community hub of DIY recording studios where various groups of creatures collaborate to explore different ways of expressing and enjoying music.

Creatures Of The Late Afternoon is what Eric calls “a journey through some of my favourite musical worlds through the turntables.” What started out as a testing ground for creating turntable tracks of different styles has taken the form of an action movie-inspired love story. The resulting album is a twenty-track two-disc set of instrumental escapades, guest vocalists and robotic hotel interludes. Creatures Of The Late Afternoon continues Kid Koala’s experimentation with music that is electric, rhythmic, groove-laden, self-sampling, heartbreaking and purely beautiful.

Kid Koala will unveil the album in four stages before the full vinyl release on April 14, 2023. The first EP is available for purchase today, along with the album’s first single, Jump & Shuffle (Live At The Hardware Store), a classic track reminiscent of the infectious uprock vibe of Some Of My Best Friends Are DJs’ timeless Skanky Panky. Led by a clever mix of scratches and distorted whistle melodies, Kid Koala invites his creatures on this joyful and inexhaustible ride under the end-of-the-day sun.

Kid Koala says: “It’s the most playful and dynamic album I’ve done to date. It was a really fun time in the studio and exploring the writing/recording process in this way was awesome. I was able to integrate a wide range of moods on the tracks in terms of energy and emotion, and I’m very happy with the result. Now I’m looking forward to working on the stage production!”

Eric played, created, and recorded all the instruments and sounds in his Montreal studio. This includes turntables, piano, drums, bass, synthesizer, saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, vibraphone, Hammond organ, electric guitar, clavinet, drum machine, tremolo, banjo, upright bass, timpani, harmonica, theremin, Wurlitzer electric piano, Rhodes piano, CP70 piano, percussion, tape loop patching, modular sequencing, modem and effects. He then cut the vinyl tapes on his homemade record tower, then put them together on turntables to create this exhilarating and sentimental sonic adventure.

Kid Koala has built an ever-changing network of artistic universes that soar across disciplines but always come together in Eric’s singular mental space. Since his debut as a DJ in 1994, Kid Koala has transformed the turntable into a tool for expression, continually challenging the idea of genre, always unrolling new pages of his singular artistic roadmap. Already with a constellation of immersive visual projects like his theatrical cinema experiments, Nufonia Must Fall and The Storyville Mosquito, Kid Koala expresses his unique creative vision with a multi-dimensional intersection of sound, image and emotion. From his award-winning graphic novel Space Cadetto the interactive audience rituals at his Vinyl Vaudeville events, to the Satellite Turntable Orchestra launched from his Music To Draw To records to the breakdancing video game Floor Kids, each new addition to Kid Koala’s portfolio traces a fascinating new path. A blueprint for a future stage show, Creatures Of The Late Afternoon is an inspiring addition to Kid Koala’s arsenal of dubplates.