Fremantle band Koi Child lands deal
Fremantle seven-piece Koi Child only formed a year ago but already have earned airplay on Triple J and BBC Radio for their beat-driven alternative hip-hop sounds concocted with Tame Impala mastermind Kevin Parker.
The talented collective signed a deal with Pilerats Records, a local offshoot of major label Warner Music Australia, over beer and chips at Little Creatures Next Door on Friday night.
Singer and rapper Shannon Patterson, who moved to Perth from South Africa four years ago, said inking the deal was “surreal”, comparing it with finally getting a job after years at university.
The latest band to emerge from Freo’s fertile music scene, Koi Child are the combined forces of hip-hop trio Childs Play and nu-jazz quartet Kashikoi.
The two disparate entities formed the supergroup for a one-off gig at Fremantle’s X-Wray Cafe last year. Parker was in the audience and asked the septet to support Tame Impala at a concert on Rottnest Island.
Koi Child’s brass-laden smooth debut single Slow One garnered plenty of radio airplay and earned comparisons with Philadelphia legends the Roots from Rolling Stone magazine. The frenetic follow-up Black Panda, which Patterson jokes is just him “trying all different ways to say how cool I am”, will be officially released online on Friday.
Both tracks should appear on Koi Child’s debut album, recorded late last year in a fishing-shack-turned-studio called Mangebong, south of Mandurah, with Parker in the producer’s chair. Patterson, 25, describes Tame Impala’s head honcho as “chilled-out”, “humble” and the band’s “favourite uncle”. Pilerats and Warner Music plan to release the album later this year.
