Kid Koala & Lelani Link For 'Things Are Gonna Change'

Three decades into an unparalleled career, Kid Koala continues to grow his immersive this-dimensional real-life cartoon musical universe with each orbit around the sun.

The world renowned DJ, composer, and lifelong visual storyteller also known as Eric San recently announced his newest foray into the depths of "creating things to joyfully connect people" - an original double album soundtrack with built-in board game entitled Creatures Of The Late Afternoon.

Centered around a cast of creatures who band together through the power of music to save their habitat from destruction, the album and the game together bear Kid Koala's singular ability to bring to life the interactive worlds of his multifaceted multimedia imagination.

Kid Koala shares a new single and video from the project, "Things Are Gonna Change," featuring rising Los Angeles art pop artist Lealani on guest lead vocals. The socially conscious party anthem is accompanied by a music video using stop-motion graphics of exploding vinyl records and studio circuitry brought to life by Montreal production company See Creature.

"This song is a distorted turntable jump up punk track featuring the inimitable Lealani on vocals. I recorded the drums, bass and guitars, cut them to vinyl using my record lathe, and then reassembled the track by scratching all the parts together with the turntables plugged into stacks of tube amplifiers," Koala says.

"I had already written the lyrics but was searching for someone who could perform the vocals and cut through the mix. I was introduced to Lealani's work through a mutual friend. Right away, I knew she had the perfect voice and energy for the track. I was able to get to LA to record with her and she slayed it!"

The nearly two-minute song is a hyper-vivid blend of quintessential Koala-esque elements, from the textural scratch of needle-on-vinyl, to the buzz of electrified instruments, all filtered through San's prismatic imagination. Video directors/animators Dale Hayward and Sylvie Trouvé and animator Claire Brognez of See Creature, brought out the true grain of "Things Are Gonna Change," expertly blending Lealani's shouts-to-action in a rousing yet playful way.

Following the video's public debut at the prestigious Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 2022, which featured their first live performance, the Kid Koala x Lealani will share the stage on an eight-date USA and Canada tour beginning February 2 in Toronto. See below for the full tour schedule.

"Scratch DJs and animators have a lot in common as they are both drawn to quite meticulous styles of expression. Both crafts have an innate ability of creating surreal sounds and visual universes," says Kid Koala.

"I've been a fan of See Creature's work for years. I especially loved their work on the stop motion scenes of The Little Prince and had been talking with them about one day working on something together. When I played them the track we landed on the idea of making a rotoscoped version of me scratching records. They proceeded to create a remarkable vinyl silhouette of me out of little pieces of broken records for each frame!? It resulted in a very wild effect and I've never seen anything quite like it."

Creatures Of The Late Afternoon is what San calls "a journey through some of my favorite musical universes through the turntables." What started as a testing ground for creating turntable tracks in different styles took shape as the score to an action film-inspired love story.

The resulting album, a twenty-track two-disc set of instrumental jaunts, features guest vocalists, and robot hotel interludes, furthers Kid Koala's experimentation in electric, beat-driven, groove-laden, self-sampling, heartrending (even if it's heavy), purely beautiful music.

Leading up to the vinyl's full release, Kid Koala will reveal the album in four stages. "Things Are Gonna Change" is the third single from the collection, following the Morriocone-like "Once Upon A Time In The Northeast," and the classic uprock beat of "Jump & Shuffle (Live At The Hardware Store)." The Lealani track sets the scene for a pivotal moment in the story, as the Creatures unite and decide to work together to create a better world.

Creatures Of The Late Afternoon is currently available for preorder ahead of its on April 14, 2023 release via Envision Records. Featuring 20 new Kid Koala tracks on double vinyl in gatefold jacket, plus 8 vinyl-only board game tracks, the package includes inserts with game pieces, dice, and 150 game cards. Built integrally into the vinyl gatefold jacket, the board game is set at a communal hub of DIY recording studios where various bands of creatures collaborate to explore different ways of expressing and enjoying music.

Kid Koala says: "This is the most playful and dynamic album I've done to date. It was a fun time in the studio, exploring the writing/recording process in this way. There is a wide range of moods on the tracks in terms of both energy and emotion and I'm excited about how the music has turned out.

Now I can't wait to get working on the stage production!" San performed and recorded all the instruments in his Montreal studio, then cut the stems to vinyl on his homespun record lathe, and reassembled them on turntables into the uplifting yet sentimental sonic adventure at hand.

Kid Koala has built an ever-expanding web of artistic universes that dart across disciplines yet always coalesce in San's singular mindspace. Since starting as a scratch DJ in 1994, Kid Koala has transformed the turntable into a tool of expression, continuously challenging the idea of genre, always unfolding new pages of his singular artistic roadmap.

Already including a constellation of immersive visual projects like his theatrical cinema experiences Nufonia Must Fall and the current globe-trotting The Storyville Mosquito production, Kid Koala expresses his unique creative vision with a multidimensional intersection of sound, image, and emotion.

From his award-winning graphic novel Space Cadet, to the interactive audience rituals of his Vinyl Vaudeville events, the Satellite Turntable Orchestra launched from his ambient Music To Draw To records, plus the breakdance video game Floor Kids, each new addition to Kid Koala's portfolio charts a fascinating new course. The blueprint to a future stage show, Creatures Of The Late Afternoon is an inspiring addition to Kid Koala's armful of spinning dubplates.

Watch the new music video here:

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