About

A TAV Essential Listening Album.

““I wanted to make a record that would be weird forever.”  — Kid Koala

Part radio play, part comedy, all turntables… and next to no beats!  Carpal Tunnel Syndrome includes the hits “Barhopper 1,”  “Barhopper  2,” and “Drunk Trumpet,” as well as the Thom Yorke-approved “Like Irregular Chickens.”” – Kid Koala

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is the first album by turntablist Kid Koala.

The track "Like Irregular Chickens" is a reference to fellow Ninja Tune artist Amon Tobin's track "Like Regular Chickens" on the album Permutation, which itself references the David Lynch film Eraserhead. – Wiki

“"Carpal Tunnel Syndrome was not an easy record to make," says Kid Koala, erupting into one of his trademark peals of laughter. It's a fair point, too. First, there was the pressure of being signed to his dream label, Ninja Tune; then the fact that he told them he'd deliver an album in six months. Four years later, he handed in Carpal Tunnel Syndrome - possibly the weirdest artist album the label had put out, and for them that's saying something.

It runs at just over half an hour, but takes the listener on a timeless and phantasmagorical journey through the mind and record collection of this celebrated Canadian turntablist and producer.

The striking thing about it is that it was made almost entirely by hand-cutting vinyl records onto an eight-track recorder. No computer splicing or looping was used to arrange it, and no samplers were employed to trigger the hundreds of records that were assembled to piece the tracks together.

"None of these tracks are songs," says Kid Koala. "They were more inspired by the Monty Python mantra of, 'Now for something completely different', or the sketches from The Muppet Show. That's what was informing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, more than me making some type of dancefloor destroyer or something. It was much more on the topic of it being an adventure in sound and records."

The results were staggeringly good. Not that Kid Koala likes to blow his own trumpet. In fact, at the time, he was riddled with self-doubt over his attempt to be an artist.

"The sample that rings truest for that whole era in my life is at the end of A Night At The Nufonia and says, 'And that, of course, is what he deserved for pretending to be a musician when he was only a butcher' [laughs].

"I wanted to make this album purely on turntables, so the question was, can this be musical? I had to wrestle with that throughout. At times, it did break through and transcend that realm, and go into a place where I could see it as a future."” – Music Radar

“Koala makes it easy for listeners to follow the transformation of his source material into totally different creations, and builds some deceptively dense, layered tracks; plus, his explosive scratching (best heard on "A Night at the Nufonia") is the equivalent of a guitar shredder soloing. His infectious sense of fun is simply a gateway to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome's readily apparent musical sophistication. All in all, a superb and accessible introduction to a specialist art form.” – AlMusic

About Kid Koala:

Kid Koala is a world-renowned scratch DJ, music producer, and award winning graphic novelist. He has released four solo albums on Ninja Tune the most recent being 12 bit Blues. He has also released two graphic novels: Nufonia Must Fall and Space Cadet. He has also been involved in collaborations such as Gorillaz, Deltron 3030, and The Slew.

Kid Koala has toured with the likes of Radiohead, the Beastie Boys, Arcade Fire, Money Mark, A Tribe Called Quest, Mike Patton, DJ Shadow, and The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. He has contributed to scores for the films Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Looper and The Great Gatsby. He has composed music for The National Film Board of Canada, the Cartoon Network, Sesame Street, and Adult Swim. He has also been commissioned to create music for runway shows for Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten. Kid Koala’s unforgettable live shows range from silly touring turntable carnivals like Short Attention Span Theater (featuring turntable bingo) and Vinyl Vaudeville (including puppets and dancers) to quiet-time events like Music To Draw To and his Space Cadet Headphone Experience. – KidKoala.com

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