Three decades into an unparalleled career, Kid Koala continues to grow his immersive 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. 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.

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, featured guest vocalists, and robot hotel interludes, Creatures Of The Late Afternoon furthers Kid Koala’s experimentation in electric, beat-driven, groove-laden, self-sampling, heartrending-even-if-its-heavy, purely beautiful music. 

Leading up to the vinyl’s full release, Kid Koala will reveal the album in four stages. Today, Kid Koala releases the second single from the collection, “Once Upon A Time In The Northeast.” A pensive and patient turntable plod, the instrumental track slowly builds from scratched textures to arid Ennio Morricone-like guitar with great canyon reverb. Against this sunset backdrop, Kid Koala sets the scene: 

“Among several rows of vials filled with water samples, one of the creatures connects clues about the cause of strange goings-on in the city… eventually uncovering a nefarious plot originating from a monolithic technological structure that, although modern and iridescent, is not as innocuous as it seems. As the creatures traverse multiple terrains toward their destination, their journey is underscored by this Spaghetti Western Style music cue.”