David Handler - Sunbled Sky (Kid Koala Remix) [Cantaloupe]

The Slow Music Movement
1 day ago
2 min read

David Handlre playing an invisible violin, casting dramatic shadow on wall. Sepia tone creates a moody, artistic atmosphere.

David Handler as well as being an accomplished violinist is something of a cultural renaissance man, even sitting on the board of the David Lynch Foundation, but for the purposes of this brief review let's just focus on his string endeavours, which to be honest I wasn't aware of, but which on cursory exploration span age old sounds right through to today's more interesting neoclassical possibilities.

Kid Koala long transcended the hip hop and turntablism scene which made him so popular, and has been upsetting the hip hop purists for the last thirty years by dipping his toes in just about every genre imaginable, as well as video game and film scoring, animation, graphic novel creation and all sorts of audio visual shenanigans. Dude's a tripper.

Originally a collaboration between Handler and pianist Orlando Alonso, "Sunbled Sky" was already pushing the boundaries of classical music the distinctly traditional strings and keys ridings a stuttering, spluttering, glitch laden bed of avant-electronics to fine effect, although I'm not sure who was responsible for the machine noise, quite possible Handler himself.

Enter Kid Koala who eases us gently into his reimagining with some ambient pads to cushion the minimal piano, some creatures of the night flying overhead and even some southern guitar twang conspiring which set a tension building cinematic scene. It's not long though before those fingers and hands start working the vinyl controllers and gliding over the mixer adding some tasteful backspins, reverse sounds and percussive scratching, sounds that ricochet around the soundscape with the deconstructed violin and piano of the original before fading to a whisper, only to regain their strength and try to burst through the speaker the following minute.

It's a suitably classical arrangement, full of orchestral drama and dynamics, that somehow finds synergy between some of the original moments and a remarkably disparate array of sonic oddities - there is serious method to Koala's madness.