Kid Koala - Nufonia Must Fall

I always appreciate a musician that can break out of the modern “ten-to-thirteen track, three-to-four minutes each, guitar-bass-drum-vocal” album framework that is so prevalent these days; and I especially appreciate a musician that can breakaway from the standard single compact disc structure. The Flaming Lip’s monumental artistic achievement, Zaireeka (a four disc set that requires four separate stereos to listen to), stands as one of the few albums that have transcended the modern conception of a “music album.” Other bands have included booklets and supplemental DVD’s in an attempt to expand the listening experience, which don’t actually do much to surpass the contemporary music paradigm. Well, Kid Koala’s most recent release is a three hundred-page graphic novel (written and penciled by himself)/CD soundtrack (composed and produced by himself) combination called Nufonia Must Fall, that works pretty well at breaking the standard album format. The idea is that the soundtrack compliments the graphic novel, a listening/reading experience. Before purchasing, I assumed that I would enjoy the soundtrack (I’m a fan of Some of My Best Friends Are DJ’s) and that the graphic novel would be a generic comic-book-method of storytelling with messy artwork (A DJ that can draw? No way, right?). Wrong, very wrong. After my first read through I realized that I had gotten it completely backwards; the story is so well constructed that I feel privileged having the opportunity to read it. Having no printed words, Kid Koala relies on telling the story through sequential actions, exaggerated body movements, and symbols representing emotions, something that’s quite difficult to perfect. There are repetitious, twisting plot devices that only an experienced author could pull off, amongst a few cartoony but nonetheless important social parallels. The premise and characterization reminded me of Tim Burton’s "The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories.” The artwork is unique and consistently elegant. The minimal soundtrack (a sixteen minute mish-mash of robot-piano, jazzy turntablism, and other oddities) is a perfect combination to the story, though it runs way to short for anyone to finish the book. Here lies the problem with this project. The album is broken up into tracks that are meant to correspond with chapters of the book, but don’t unless you read really fast. Given the unique nature of this project, I expected more to come out of the reading/listening experience. A more demanding conjunction between the two media could have yielded a new technique for others to follow. While the project isn’t a complete success, the rare occurrence that a musician goes beyond single CD format merits this release extra leeway. I encourage everyone who enjoys a good story to pick this up, although it may be a little hard to find (I got my copy from Tower Records in Manhattan). Support non-traditional music projects. [www.kidkoala.com]