Released June 12, 2015
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Key Tracks:
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"Kosi Koze is back"
"Kosi Koze is back," announces the voice at the beginning of DJ Koze's contribution to the venerable DJ-Kicks mix series. It's only sort of true. We're still waiting on a follow-up to 2013's Amygdala, one of this decade's best dance albums. But DJ-Kicks, despite being only partially composed of Koze's own music, is everything we could have asked for from a follow-up to Amygdala. It plays like a rock-solid followup that doesn't reach its predecessor's lofty heights but is clearly made by the same gifted hand and gives further insight into the mind controlling it. Koze declared Amygdala his Sgt. Pepper's, in which case this is his Magical Mystery Tour--which, let's not forget, wasn't even an "official" album either in the Beatles catalog.
Taken as a mix, DJ-Kicks cycles through three stages. The first focuses on hip hop, a genre Koze first fell in love with in the '80s, when he cut his teeth as a competitive DJ. His taste in rap is a bit dubious, if the odious indie-rap fauxetry of cLOUDDEAD's "Dead Dogs Two" and the "sorry-I'm-so-lucky" rhapsodizing of Homeboy Sandman's "Holidays" are any indication. But the instrumentals he selects are of top caliber, as light and hooky as Koze's own best work.
Act two is more melancholy. Broadcast shows up with the lovely two-minute ditty "Tears In The Typing Pool." After that we've got Daniel Lanois fiddling around on the pedal steel, mixed with a cut from The 2 Bears that sounds uncannily like Plastic Beach-era Gorillaz. Then William Shatner comes in--yes, William Shatner. His monologue "It Hasn't Happened Yet" is a moving meditation on aging and unfulfilled goals, the word "yet" raising the stakes. It's the most poignant thing on the record, and if you didn't know it was Shatner, it wouldn't come across as anything resembling a joke.
Act three returns us to the dance world we're used to from Koze, and it's the least compelling part of the album if only because it's what we expect. We've heard him do house, but he's only teased his skill with hip hop time to time--most notably on Amygdala's "Das Wort" and "Homesick"--and the middle section is entirely a curveball. Still, it feels like an inevitable culmination, and the album wanders there so gracefully it might be difficult to process you're listening to house until the kick has been chugging along for quite some time.
Taken as an album, DJ-Kicks is a love letter to music and family. Koze drunkenly sings along with Homeboy Sandman's "Holidays" in his thick German accent. He duets on the same song with a young child that could be his daughter or his niece. He rhapsodizes about wanting to reach out and touch music. And then there's the introduction, delivered by a supposed neighbor of Koze's who claims the album makes him and his "whole fucking family" feel "overnice."
The track that features that introduction, "I Haven't Been Everywhere But It's On My List," is the only entirely original composition on the album, confirming a suspicion I've had since Amygdala: Koze can coax as much emotion out of hip hop as house. It's the apex of Koze's virtuosity with vocal samples, building to a climax not through ramping up the sonic aggression but through upping the emotional stakes. The vocal sample enters, formless and unbound to a beat; once the beat snaps in, the sample begins to hiccup and convulse. As the song peaks, a pitch-shifted keen, seemingly coaxed out of the throat of someone about to break into tears, shoots out of the background. It may be the single most heart-wrenching sound I've heard on a record this year. But it also raises the question: what the fuck is that?
According to the song's music video, it's an opera-singing T. Rex. This gets to the core of what's so wonderful about DJ Koze, and what makes both this album and Amygdala so compelling. Though he's capable of instilling profound awe and emotion in his audience--and he does, often--he'd ultimately rather us have a good time. Koze's joy is infectious, and it shines through even in DJ-Kicks' most devastating moments.
Taken as a mix, DJ-Kicks cycles through three stages. The first focuses on hip hop, a genre Koze first fell in love with in the '80s, when he cut his teeth as a competitive DJ. His taste in rap is a bit dubious, if the odious indie-rap fauxetry of cLOUDDEAD's "Dead Dogs Two" and the "sorry-I'm-so-lucky" rhapsodizing of Homeboy Sandman's "Holidays" are any indication. But the instrumentals he selects are of top caliber, as light and hooky as Koze's own best work.
Act two is more melancholy. Broadcast shows up with the lovely two-minute ditty "Tears In The Typing Pool." After that we've got Daniel Lanois fiddling around on the pedal steel, mixed with a cut from The 2 Bears that sounds uncannily like Plastic Beach-era Gorillaz. Then William Shatner comes in--yes, William Shatner. His monologue "It Hasn't Happened Yet" is a moving meditation on aging and unfulfilled goals, the word "yet" raising the stakes. It's the most poignant thing on the record, and if you didn't know it was Shatner, it wouldn't come across as anything resembling a joke.
Act three returns us to the dance world we're used to from Koze, and it's the least compelling part of the album if only because it's what we expect. We've heard him do house, but he's only teased his skill with hip hop time to time--most notably on Amygdala's "Das Wort" and "Homesick"--and the middle section is entirely a curveball. Still, it feels like an inevitable culmination, and the album wanders there so gracefully it might be difficult to process you're listening to house until the kick has been chugging along for quite some time.
Taken as an album, DJ-Kicks is a love letter to music and family. Koze drunkenly sings along with Homeboy Sandman's "Holidays" in his thick German accent. He duets on the same song with a young child that could be his daughter or his niece. He rhapsodizes about wanting to reach out and touch music. And then there's the introduction, delivered by a supposed neighbor of Koze's who claims the album makes him and his "whole fucking family" feel "overnice."
The track that features that introduction, "I Haven't Been Everywhere But It's On My List," is the only entirely original composition on the album, confirming a suspicion I've had since Amygdala: Koze can coax as much emotion out of hip hop as house. It's the apex of Koze's virtuosity with vocal samples, building to a climax not through ramping up the sonic aggression but through upping the emotional stakes. The vocal sample enters, formless and unbound to a beat; once the beat snaps in, the sample begins to hiccup and convulse. As the song peaks, a pitch-shifted keen, seemingly coaxed out of the throat of someone about to break into tears, shoots out of the background. It may be the single most heart-wrenching sound I've heard on a record this year. But it also raises the question: what the fuck is that?
According to the song's music video, it's an opera-singing T. Rex. This gets to the core of what's so wonderful about DJ Koze, and what makes both this album and Amygdala so compelling. Though he's capable of instilling profound awe and emotion in his audience--and he does, often--he'd ultimately rather us have a good time. Koze's joy is infectious, and it shines through even in DJ-Kicks' most devastating moments.
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