Kid Koala Slays Hometown Crowd at Pop Montreal

Posted on Oct 3rd 2009 4:05PM by Jonathan Dekel
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Local DJ hero Kid Koala brought his new collective the Slew to Pop Montreal for a hard rock-meets-hip-hop headlining set that included six turntables (with an assist from New York-based DJ P-Love) and Wolfmother's former rhythm section, bassist Chris Ross and drummer Myles Heskett.

The Slew is the fruit of four years of labour and features Koala's signature sound manipulations as applied to the concept of big-riffs and heavy beats laid under pre-recorded soulful vocals. Or as Koala told Spinner recently, the "sound [of] Public Enemy's Bomb Squad [producing] a Black Sabbath record."

Naturally, reproducing such a genre-bending album live required a unique approach, both visually and aurally. Koala did both by making the lively Ross de facto frontman with Heskett laying down the backbeat and then flanking the rockers with two world-class turntablists in full-on show-off mode.

On record, the Slew's experiments sound like organized chaos -- manipulating rock music to fit the odd time-signatures of hip-hop -- and produces a near psychedelic effect on the listener which was was amplified ten-fold for the live show. Add to this the element of a group clearly enjoying their new-found sonic freedom and you get the feeling of bearing witness to a unique jam session of artists seeing how far they can push the genre envelope before it pushes back.

This point came to a head during the encore as Koala and P-Love traded samples introducing the band. While introducing himself, Koala sampled Kid Rock's declaration "My name is Kiiiiiiiiiiiiid..." sending the veteran DJ into a fit of giggles before announcing to the crowd that he was "just having too much fun."

To underscore the point, before launching into set-closer 'Battle of Heaven and Hell,' Koala announced that the collective, which had been considered a one-off, would be entering the studio to record a follow-up to their debut album once they wrap up the current tour. "We're just getting started," Koala added with a sly smile.