Name: Eric San aka Kid Koala
Nationality: Canadian
Occupation: Producer, DJ
Current release: Kid Koala's Creatures Of The Late Afternoon is out April 14th 2023 via Envision.
Recommendations: Wasaphone Microphone: Just a wonderful sounding lo fi microphone.  I love how it captures strummed string instruments like acoustic guitars, banjos, ukes etc. It has this brilliant way of smoothing out all the super gnarly sibilant parts of the sound but still has all the feel somehow!
Soma Labs Cosmos Drifting Memory Station: A wonderful tool for ambient or sci fi film work. I’ve been practicing with it and it can be played quite intuitively during our Music To Draw To Sessions.
Fine Gear Dust Collector: A wonderful and playable sound sculpting tool that has an amazing amount of patchable options to integrate into an effect chain.

If you enjoyed this Kid Koala interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, and Facebook.  



What was your first studio like?

My first studio was a little tape / phono / radio “hifi” that my sister had. There was something wrong with the erase head on the tape deck. It wouldn’t fully erase and you could hear the last thing you recorded in a dusty way. But it allowed for a sound on sound recording. So it enabled me to sort of make multitrack recordings even though it was just supported to be a standard stereo cassette deck.

I didn’t have a mixer but there was a switch that would select Tape Phono / Radio. I would tune the radio to some quiet static between stations (that would be my 'off' setting) and switch to phono to hear the record sound (that would be my 'on' setting) so that kind of worked as a makeshift transform switch while scratching.

The needle was terrible and it was a belt drive turntable … but I found that the Flexi-disc records usually found in magazines or cereal boxes wouldn’t skip the needle. So for the first year and a half of learning how to scratch, I would scratch those Flexi discs!

How and for what reasons has your set-up evolved over the years and what are currently some of the most important pieces of gear for you?

I think it started when I was on tour with keyboarder Money Mark. He was kind of like a musical mentor to me.

While we were on tour he brought me to many flea markets and swap meets where we would dig for used music equipment and instruments. Since then, whenever we’re out on the road I would try to dig for stuff and find some new noise making gadgets to add to the palette.

For me, the main pieces in the studio that help in the writing process are the instruments and my record cutter, which I used extensively to cut original stems to vinyl and then scratch them into the track in a new way.

Some see instruments and equipment as far less important than actual creativity, others feel they go hand in hand. What’s your take on that?

Everything can become an instrument or at least a point of inspiration. I remember recording a metal bowl of grapes once in the studio.

I remember early on I wanted to create an upright bass sound, but I didn’t have an upright bass. So instead I stretched 4 rubber bands around an empty shoe box, plucked a melody line and then slowed it down by several octaves. I was surprised at how full and warm the sound was. It actually sounded very much like an upright bass with regards to how full the low end was but it had a quirkiness to it that I liked.

Each instrument has a different interface, and sometimes wrestling with that interface can spark an idea or a cool new sound or song / track idea. For me, it’s all about playing and finding the tools to create a musical feeling. I’ve made score music and video game music that has over 40 instruments on one track, I’ve also made solo piano records or a hybrid of those acoustic and electronic things like on the Space Cadet soundtrack.

The main goal is to find that mood required for the scene, and to do it with a bit of your own style or spirit. Even the stealthiest sonic layers that are very quiet in the mix affect the feeling of the music somehow.

A studio can be as minimal as a laptop with headphones and as expansive as a multi-room recording facility. Which studio situation do you personally prefer – and why?

My studio contains a pretty random assortment of gear. I like to combine sounds from instruments / equipment from different eras. Like playing an 80s PCM synth through a 70s filter and a 50s tube preamp …. Or playing a 1930s guitar but recording it on your phone mic! I like the idea of all these things sharing the same spacetime somehow. It’s like all the ghosts in all the machines get to hang out for a little while.

A lot of the stuff is slightly broken, or is not calibrated to factory spec. I like that those things each leave a bit of a fingerprint on the sound somehow. I’ve heard Tom Waits describe a sonic style called “Pawn Shop Hifi.” That concept resonates with me. A keyboard might be broken, missing buttons, missing keys, but it’s still got a melody that it can and wants to play!

From traditional keyboards to microtonal ones, from re-configured instruments (like drums or guitars) to customised devices, what are your preferred controllers and interfaces? What role does the tactile element play in your production process?

For sequencing I’ve been enjoying working with the Polyend SEQ. I’ve been using it to sequence pitch shifts on 3 varispeed MIDI Vestax Turntables. I can sequence a chord cycle of 3 note harmonies (one note on each turntable) and scratch it while it’s cycling.

I think my very favourite interface is still the turntable. Once it’s on the turntable it’s kind of where the real fun begins for me. I may have written a melody or motif on guitar or clarinet or something but once it’s on the decks I can rephrase it through scratching and create a hand-cut musical part that sounds fun and slightly surreal yet still have all the notes and harmonies I was looking for in the original part.

In the light of picking your tools, how would you describe your views on topics like originality and innovation versus perfection and timelessness in music? Are you interested in “music of the future” or “continuing a tradition”?

This answer may sound like a joke but I’m kind of interested in the tradition of making original music for the future/past.

Most would regard recording tools like microphones and mixing desks as different in kind from instruments like keyboards, guitars, drums and samplers. Where do you stand on this?

I love performing live and always believed anything in the studio is “playable” and can be used in a “live” way. I enjoy mixing live on an analog desk, doing the mutes live and pans also. It’s like you have to “perform” the mix somewhat and it all adds to the energy in the final mix.

Just watch Lee Scratch Perry do his thing for a great example of what it can add to a track! It’s an exciting way to mix and when it’s going well it’s akin to surfing and very thrilling!

Microphones can be used as instruments, you can manually move them around an amplifier while recording to create a Doppler effect! On the song “The Darkest Day” featuring Emilíana Torrini, I used a delay pedal that had separate outs for each delay playback head and put each output to a different mini amplifier. Then I would move the microphone around to pick up certain echos from each of the amplifiers to get a kind of cut up, fever dream type of feel.

How would you describe the relationship between technology and creativity for your work? Using a recent piece as an example, how do you work with your production tools to achieve specific artistic results?

I’m always just trying to get a certain feeling in a track. For the song “When U Say Love” from Creatures of the Late Afternoon. I wanted to make a jukebox jam reminiscent of the music my parents listened to when they were young.

When my father was studying at university in the 1960s, my parents would correspond by writing 2 letters a week to each other! I found a box full of these letters as well as reel to reel tapes of pop songs at the time that my father would tape off the radio and send to my mother. He would also write the lyrics down for her so she could read and sing along. That’s actually how my mother learned to speak English! I thought that was very sweet.

So I wrote a song and lyrics inspired by that time in their lives. I wanted the tone of it being played through a jukebox speaker. Kind of like a nostalgic, turntable scratch version of that. I love being able to bend the layers on the turntables to make it kind of surreal!

I used ribbon mics for the piano and era specific spring and plate reverbs, but I would also use tone records off a turntable and bend them into the background “oohs” during the bridge. When it was pitched up enough it almost sounded like a human voice but to me was still a “turntable” part.

My main approach is to try different recording techniques,  learn, and hopefully capture those surprising moments in the studio. Whatever works and whatever is the most fun. For me, the fun happens when you’re learning and trying new things!

Production tools can already suggest compositional ideas on their own. How much of your music is based on concepts and ideas you had before entering the studio, how much of it is triggered by equipment, software and apps?

I always save some time at the end of the studio session everyday just try something completely different for the educational factor. For example putting different pedals in a signal chain configuration that I hadn’t tried before.

I feel my studio is kind of like a “dating service” for instruments and effects. So over the years I’ve learned things like: “That ribbon synth loves this pedal! They were made for each other!” or “That vocoder and this phaser are a match made in heaven!”

Sometimes it will just not work out and if I don’t get anything too interesting, I’ll try something else until I do. But if that moment happens and it’s 3 in the morning, I’ll try to stay in the zone and lean into it for another hour in the studio just to record it and sketch out a track!

The stuff I enjoy most in shows and in recorded music is predominantly the “human powered” aspect. Each moment has an energy to it. Like a vocal voice slightly cracking, or a wolf on a violin string, or a low end bump on a spin back on a turntable. Those types of sounds make everything a little more human and imperfect to me … which is quite beautiful.

What tools/instruments do you feel could have a deeper impact on creativity but need to still be invented or developed?

I think everything and anything is possible. Often the catalyst for the development of the technology is to do things faster or “make things easier” for the user. But the question remains, what do you do with your time when everything is easy? Personally, I like working in the studio. It’s my happy place. So you don’t have to twist my arm to get me to spend more time playing in the studio.

One of my favourite paintings is Seurat’s “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte”. I’m sure there’s probably a filter that can approximate that visual style instantaneously. But if you’ve ever seen the painting in person, you can see / feel there is a little life force in each one of those dots he painted on there. The fact that he chose to just work on that painting for almost 2 years is the part that’s inspiring to me. I imagine he was just trying something that had never been seen before or on that scale, or perhaps he only had one large canvas! Either way, that commitment to the work is inspiring to me.

I just very much enjoy the process of making things. It’s such a joyous pursuit for me. Even if it takes literally years to complete an album or develop a new show. Many of the projects I’m currently working on are on a 7 - 10 year arc of completion whether they are books, films, video games or theatre productions.

Music is actually the quickest thing for me to make and it still takes me 3 years to write / record / package and release something. My friends in 2D animation say I have the patience of an animator and I would say that was true!