Live Review

Kid Koala – Koko, London

• 7th Apr 2011

The set up this evening sounded amazing. A legendary Russian-British DJ with a new band to showcase, the epic, semi-free jazz sound of Polar Bear and Kid Koala scratching till the early morning. Koko is a fun venue as well, very easy to get lost in if you try and find the toilet, with a standing room at the base, with viewing platforms all around this old theatre that go steeper and steeper up. There are a few sofas knocking about, a smoking area where you can look down on the Euston and survey the BT tower further on, and then, oblivion, and a bar with (so far as I’ve seen in my brief time on this planet) the most expensive cans of Red Stripe money can buy. It doesn’t even taste any better at £4 something. With a £20 on the night ticket as well, Koko acts as if the students that attend the events there have not had to go through the vicissitudes of the austerity measures and are rather the care free young professionals with the powdered noses of the 80s. To sum up, you expect quite a lot when you have to stump up that kind of cash for a night of musical entertainment.

Which is why, for part of the evening, the attendees, like myself, must have cried with anguish on the perusal of their mini-statements. DJ Vadim was the first of the headline acts, showcasing, with him on the decks, a new funky, hip-hoppy band, The Electric. The band were manageable I suppose, a few catchy, infectious choruses, and some homage to 1990s hip-hop with the vocals. But it did lack something really. It wasn’t too memorable, and rather annoying, the lead female vocalist sounded like a Joss Stone-turned American singer, the rap sounding a bit naff and without any lyric quality to speak of really. ‘You’re beautiful, yeah, yeah, you’re beautiful, from your head down to your cuticle.’ Not quite Oxford Dictionary of 21st Century Quotations from one of the songs, ‘Beautiful’. The song ‘Terrorist’ stuck in the head, but not in a nice way, but rather as if someone had told you some piece of inane information just before a huge test. It’ll remain, locked in your brain, but you really don’t want it there. This criticism befits the price I think, so if you’d have seen this band at a little club, you might have more praise to heap upon the band.

Then came Polar Bear, a jazzy ensemble that are hard to categorise in the pretentious record shop of the mind. They fit near Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, then turn slightly towards indie, discordant guitar based music, then into a melodic, then difficult free jazz. Quality stuff nonetheless, and on stage they got up and tootled away proudly. However, one of the let-downs was the British MC on stage adding his own tuppence on top, which may have been good by itself, but it drowned out the intricacy of the band in a big way.

Finally up on stage was Kid Koala, who performed so well it all felt alright. Camera hovered above his decks to show the skill, concentration and fun Kid Koala has on his playful, 90’s hip-hop inspired beats, with samples plucked out from a multitude of different places. He laughed and joked with the audience, got them up for an audience-y participatory pillow fight, and above all played with confidence and flair. I think at one point he nicked a bit from ‘9 to 5’ by Dolly Parton. But the songs are not merely fragments of samples mixed together to a generic beat, but crafted and reworked into completely new, baffling, exciting songs. With a new album coming out in the summer, the funny, weird Canadian man in a Koala suit mixing from a wall of sound that seems chaotic and yet strangely concentrated and assured, is someone to listen out more for if you can. And try and see a live show. It is worth the advance.