Album Reviews

Pampa Records

Stefan Kozalla – aka DJ Koze – is one of techno’s most innovative artists. With Knock Knock, the wonderfully capricious German releases his first album in five years and it’s perhaps his most otherworldly and unique yet. Everything he does on the record arrives in a form you just don’t expect. Sounds you think you know are morphed and distorted, genres are fused together and arrangements are wild and beautifully unpredictable. Like 2013’s Amygdala, Knock Knock has a kaleidoscopic aesthetic, exploring disparate avenues with both a sense of adventure and fun. That is what sets this album part – its ability to be off-kilter, but at the same time, a euphoric experience.

Koze’s idiosyncratic style sees him explore disco, soul, hip-hop, folk, techno, psychedelia and pop, but all splayed through his otherworldly gaze. So singular in style is it that the entire album has an utterly timeless feel totally devoid of fashion. Instead, Koze creates a world of his own; one that although always familiar, twists our cosy assumptions. Highly immersive and full of colour, this is undoubtedly the most expressive record from an artist who has never struggled to show the world his eccentric vison.

Even with an impressive cohort of collaborators, including Bon Iver, Róisín Murphy, Mano Le Tough and Sophia Kennedy, Knock

Knock remains DJ Koze through and through – wild, risk-taking electronic music that sounds like no other.

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