About KBJ

Koala Bear Jenkins is a producer and multi-instrumentalist based out of Los Angeles, CA. His debut EP, ALL MY HOMIES LOVE STALIN (2020), is a blend of placid psychedelia with the vigor of indie punk. Written and recorded in only 5 days, this venture proved to be only the beginning of Koala Bear Jenkins’ musical output.

Koala Bear Jenkins is the project of Los Angeles-native, Chris Portillo, who only began learning to play music at the age of 22. Although just starting out as a self-taught guitarist, he quickly began exploring other instruments such as: the bass, the piano (which he learned to play from the free-to-use pianos on the campus of UCLA — the school where he graduated from in 2021), and the drums (which he considers to be his instrument of choice), as well as the flute, kalimba, harmonica, and bongos.

Influenced by the likes of the Grateful Dead and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard; Koala Bear Jenkins embarked on the production of his second EP, Kaleidoscopic Explorations of Logic (2021), a gapless experience that blends the genres of psych, punk, krautrock, jam, and Latin American percussion. The main collaborator on the record being his fiancée, Jacquelyn Garcia (Lyrics and Vocals). His newest project is a playlist compiled from his scrapped album, aptly titled Bigfoot and the Billygoat (A Playlist of Unfinished and Unreleased Songs from the Album that Never Got To Be). Mostly recorded between June 2020 and May 2021.