KID KOALA’S SPACE CADET CONTINUES ITS CREATIVE JOURNEY WITH THE RELEASE OF THE SOUNDTRACK SAMPLER EP
Today, Envision Records releases the Space Cadet Soundtrack Sampler EP, bringing together music from Space Cadet, the animated feature film by Kid Koala!
This digital EP highlights a remarkable set of collaborations, including contributions from Emilíana Torrini, Meaghan Smith, and Trixie Whitley. For listeners familiar with Kid Koala’s body of work, it also continues creative relationships that began in earlier collaborations, including with both Torrini and Whitley, while opening another way into the emotional world of the film.
For Envision, this release is also a moment to reflect on a creative journey that began over a decade ago.
The story of Space Cadet began in 2011 with Kid Koala’s self-published graphic novel, a 132-page etchboard work accompanied by a “still picture score” performed on piano, bass, viola, and multiple turntables. It received a 2012 Independent Publisher Gold Medal Book Award and quickly revealed itself as something that lived naturally beyond the page.
Soon after, Envision worked alongside Kid Koala to develop the Space Cadet Headphone Concert, an immersive live experience that invited audiences into the work as both listeners and participants. The Space Cadet Headphone Concert traveled across 11 cities in Canada, the United States, France, Germany, Belgium, and England.
It was during one of these early performances that the idea for a film adaptation first emerged. Moved by the story and its possibilities, producer Ginette Petit proposed bringing Space Cadet to the screen!
14 years after the release of the original graphic novel, that vision has now become reality. The long arc of Space Cadet reflects a way of working that has guided Envision’s collaborations for many years: accompanying artists and ideas over time, allowing projects to grow, shift forms, and find new expressions as they develop.
Directed and scored by Kid Koala and produced by Les Films Outsiders, the Space Cadet animated feature premiered in 2025 and has since traveled widely across the international festival circuit. The film, a dialogue-free fable following young astronaut Celeste and her robot companion, blends hand-drawn animation and original music into a poignant, music-filled tale about memories and the bonds that connect us. Its journey has included a world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival, screenings at Annecy International Animation Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival’s Canada’s Top Ten, as well as presentations at festivals across Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
Now in 2026, Space Cadet is continuing its journey in theatres around the world!
Having been part of the project from its earliest beginnings, Envision is grateful to continue supporting this evolving work through the release of the Space Cadet Soundtrack Sampler on Envision Records. The EP offers another way to experience the musical landscape that has accompanied Space Cadet across its many stages of development, bringing together artists whose voices resonate with the project’s emotional tone while opening the work to new audiences.
Having worked with Kid Koala since 2002, Envision has had the privilege of working alongside an incredible artist whose work defies genre while remaining grounded in a singular artistic vision. Space Cadet is a powerful example of what sustained collaboration can make possible: a project that began as a graphic novel and score, became an immersive live show, and has now continued into film and recorded music, each form deepening rather than repeating the last.