Kid Koala
12 Bit Blues

Ninja Tune

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$45.00 SGD
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$45.00 SGD

About

A TAV Essential Listening Album.

As a real, genuine kid, long before he became Kid Koala, Eric San wanted an E-mu SP-1200 sampler – the Ark of the Covenent of hip hop production, used by his idols and heroes and imbued with legendary, almost supernatural, audio powers by rap aficionados worldwide. Unfortunately, he worked out he would have to deliver around eight million newspapers to buy one. Now, having hit his thirties, Eric finally has the machine he always craved.

Of course, music production has largely moved on, so Eric began working out what he could do with it - a kind of reverse engineering back to his childhood self. A little mucking around and it came to him – the blues was always about stripping music back to its bare essentials, which is exactly what the SP1200 does, too. Over three days he cut up and reassembled the bed tracks for 12 Bit Blues. No sequencing software was used. Using the pads on the machine and a multitrack, Eric played each part of the tracks in real time, before finally returning and adding cuts over the top.

The result is a really raw, immediate and strangely beautiful album, much like the music it draws on for its inspiration. In attempting to outplay and out-think the technology he is working with he revives the unworldly oddness of blues music before it became a staple of beer adverts and the jam-fantasies of middle aged marketing executives. This is the music, ripped and scratched and distressed until all those souls sold down the crossroads rise up and send shivers down your spine. It’s that real and, yes, that made up. – Kid Koala

“The blues is the wellspring of American popular music both figuratively (as a source of inspiration and influence) and literally (as a source of raw materials constantly plundered by young artists). What's interesting is how consistently this remains true even as popular music changes in pretty radical ways. The progression from Robert Johnson to Jimi Hendrix is relatively continuous and logical -- but from Robert Johnson to Moby? This album from DJ Kid Koala bridges a gap even wider than the one Moby jumped for his highly influential album Play: while Moby embedded samples of field recordings into his house and techno pieces, with 12 Bit Blues Kid Koala is taking almost the reverse approach. Using a sampler to fold, spindle, and mutilate old blues recordings, he embeds technology into his source material.

In the interest of keeping the sounds raw and fresh, Koala decided against using any sequencing software; instead, he multi-tracked layers of samples, manipulated them, then added final tracks of scratching and cutting over the top. The result is full of familiar elements, but very odd juxtapositions: despite the frequent incursion of virtuosic turntablist flourishes, there are no breakbeats and there is little that can reasonably be called "funky"; the voices and guitar sounds are archetypal, but in many cases they are also radically deconstructed. This is the kind of album that Skip McDonald might make if he were a DJ rather than a guitarist. It's intriguing and at times vaguely unsettling.” - AllMusic

Item description:

Artist:

Kid Koala

Title:

12 Bit Blues

Label:

Ninja Tune

Format:

2 × Vinyl, LP, Album

Pressing:

UK

Release Date:

2012

Genre:

Electronica, Hip Hop, Blues

Style:

Rhythm & Blues

Catalog No:

ZEN190

Condition:

New