The language we use to describe DJs is inevitably restricted and tiresome. When we're not calling them the Hendrixes of hip-hop, we're calling them the Van Halens. We, the Jealous Reviewers, have secluded them to the fringes of society while feigning to respect them as the bedrock of modern music. For me, and people like me, all DJs are, or should be, crazy block-rocking pyrotechnic experimental explosion collage artists, hellbent on throwing down flammable hardcore funkfests, and nothing but. For the hip-hop and indie rock elite, you're a good DJ if you can move the cueing lever with your tongue or light your fader on fire. This raises the question: Could there be an acoustic DJ? A Simon and Garfunkel DJ?
No. Anyway, here we are. Kid Koala's new album. Ever since he hit the streets on the vanguard of the "DJ contortionists" with his track on Return of the DJ 2 in '97, Kid Koala has been at the forefront of instrumental DJ brilliance, with a sense of playfulness somewhere between the Invisibl Skratch Piklz and Cut Chemist. On his new rock-and-then-suddenly-stop half-hour album, Some of My Best Friends Are DJs, Koala sheds his former persona almost completely, with its tracks focusing more on structure, tone, and mood than how fast he can scratch. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome suggested this preoccupation, but there are virtually no discernible "tick-a-tick-a" sounds or mind-melting juggling here. It's a crackling, wooden excess of inebriated brass and meandering sideways bass. The predominant instruments are softly strummed ukulele and acoustic guitar. It's like a busking bossa nova Deltron 3030.
The opener, "Basin Street Blues", is a startling scramble of subtle moderation for a DJ. First of all, it actually is the 1928 Spencer Williams standard "Basin Street Blues", which makes it one of the best (if not one of the only) DJ cover songs. A languishing bass starts buzzing, percussive acoustic guitar drums up, and the melody is taken by a sleepy trombone that falls into dilapidated moaning. It's a speakeasy DJ, performing for cotton pennies minted in the flapper era, watching the grime, poverty, and a parade. The beat keeps trying to jump into the morass only to shyly wander away. There are the requisite goofy samples, of course, but it's all rather seamless; this is more a composition than a mix.
Elsewhere, "Skanky Panky" is like Tom Waits doing ska using your mom's easy listening killing fields and some convulsive funk. "Robochacha" is a robot learning how to dance. And I'm not just going David Fricke on the Pfork. That's what the song tells us it's about. Even my sordid heart and vexatious mind must surrender to a dancing robot song.
The problem is, if the songwriting falls flat on an enterprise like this, there's no turntable pummeling to entertain you in languid spots. "Annie's Parlor" and "Vacation Island" are far from boring or overtly gimmicky, but the jazzy piano riffs and brass solos don't seem to be quite as well placed or stretched. "Stompin' at Le Savoi" has a decent beat and some grunting horn, but it never evolves, merely tracing innumerable loops around its sample.
I might add in passing that rarely has a musician seemed less interested in his music than Kid Koala. This album comes with enhanced CD, a lengthy comic book, and a cut-out chess set, as well as a snide criticism of people like me ("free comic book + CD with this travel-size chess game"). In many ways, Some of My Best Friends Are DJs is little more than a brief comedy album, filled with strange samples of eccentric characters pontificating on their record collections and audio systems. You can either accept this as a sort of endearing (or perhaps sort of affably lazy) quality that shows he's in the game for fun, or you can wish he would stop jerking us around and fulfill his artistic potential. For some people, this tension will be a radical reinterpretation of turntable culture. Personally, I could do without coughing beatboxes and koala flatulence. Kid Koala is capable of making some of the best songs (and albums) in hip-hop. He knows it. We know it. His liner notes know it. The anticipation is abominable. He's three-quarters there.
