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 a built-in board game entitled Creatures Of The Late Afternoon set for release on April 23, 2023. 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. 

Today, 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. 

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. 

TOUR DATES
 
Feb 2              Toronto, ON @ Axis Club **
Feb 3              Guelph, ON @ Hillside Festival **
Feb 4              Oshawa, ON @ Biltmore Theatre **
Feb 7              Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios **
Feb 8              Seattle, WA @ Substation **
Feb 9              Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret **
Feb 10            Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room **
Feb 11            Calgary, AB @ Palace Theatre, Blockheater Festival **
Feb 22            Quebec City, QC @ Le Diamant *
Feb 23            Quebec City, QC @ Le Diamant *
Mar 23            Nashville, TN @ OZ Arts *
Mar 24            Nashville, TN @ OZ Arts *
Mar 25            Nashville, TN @ OZ Arts (2 shows) *
Apr 6               St. Catharines, ON @ FirstOntario Centre (2 shows) *
Apr 7               St. Catharines, ON @ FirstOntario Centre (2 shows) *
Apr 8               St. Catharines, ON @ FirstOntario Centre (3 shows) *
 
* The Storyville Mosquito
** Kid Koala x Lealani