Author: Kid Koala

Format: Enhanced

Release Date: 31-12-1899

Details: Amazon.ca Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is possibly one of the most self-referential turntablist releases of all time; one kaleidoscopic track segues into another, punctuated with sampled spoken phrases such as "those crazy sound-effects records you like to show off," "stacks of wax," and "they don't even have any instruments, just two record players." But Kid Koala doesn't just drop in a spoken tidbit like "we're nothing but the nerds they say we are" for a quick laugh. Rather, he lingers lovingly over it, back-spinning with such minute precision that he isolates and reorders every phoneme in a technical tour de force that transcends its own virtuosity when it transmutes seamlessly into an equally chopped-up bebop drum solo. This short (38 minutes) but dense release pulls together an astonishing variety of source material and is consistently engaging and technically impressive, although many tracks revolve around comedic elements (like slightly surreal extracts from an interview with a broadcast sound-effects expert and dating how-tos) that may not stand up to repeated listening. In the same way that Eddie Van Halen is not a better guitarist than Jeff Beck simply because he plays faster, Kid Koala and his contemporaries might not strike everyone as an improvement on the innovations of Grandmaster Flash. --Bob Bannister

UPC: 625978103425

EAN: 0625978103425

Languages: English

Binding: Audio CD

Item Condition: UsedVeryGood