While I pride myself on being open-eared to any style or genre of music that can be thrown my way at 192 kilobits per second, I confess to being particularly ignorant to anything and everything involving a turntable.

Which is why Kid Koala (Eric San), being an artist I've always only somewhat enjoyed, never quite made his way into any of my 'favourites' lists, never appeared on any mix-tape I've made, and wasn't ever a blip on my internal radar for live acts to seek.

With "The Slew", Kid Koala has my attention.

'The Slew' as a band is an impressive supergroup. The album was created as a collaboration by Kid Koala and Dynomite D (Dylan Frombach), and produced by Mario Caldato Jr. (known for his work with the Beastie Boys). As a live entity, The Slew are Koala, D, 6 turntables and the drummer and bass player from Wolfmother. Well, so I've heard anyway.

Apparently The Slew were only to tour this record once and never again, which if true, is one of the saddest shames in recent musical history. The album "100%" is one of the most refreshing pieces of work I've heard in years. While other bands have combined rock and roll with turn-tabling DJ antics, none have ever succeeded in creating a sound so convincingly honest as The Slew.

When FatBoy Slim exploded the radio charts in the 90's, he was too close to his dance and beat roots and thus retained an overall soulless sound. The Beastie Boys have refined their style in a way that satisfies but doesn't draw as much from rock music as I sometimes wish they would. Radiohead love to explore one extreme or the other but rarely both at once, and never in a way that might be described as "BadAss."

The Slew nail it. Plain and simple, "100%" is the epitome of a sound that should have been an integral bookmark in our winamp playists since Windows 95. The opening rock wail and bass lick of the first track is all I need to describe. Take this concept and let it divide itself through an impossibly compelling mitosis of every piece of musical DNA you've been listening to for the past 2 decades. We have all been waiting a long time for The Slew, we just didn't realize it.

While I have already stated my ignorance within the DJ genre, I also realize that I could very well be describing a thousand similar underground works that have simply never made their way onto my mp3 player. If this is the case, and "100%" acts as a gateway drug into a world of similarly cut-and-scratched rock and roll then so be it. The Slew serve up one hell of a first hit, a habit I don't intend to drop anytime soon.

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