DJ KOZE レコード& CD

Review: Whenever we get wind of a new DJ Koze 12", we're hooked. Few artists are as left of centre and loveable as Stefan Kozalla, the Pampa Music boss who has recently worked with Roisin Murphy on her essential new album. Here he is in solo mode on 'Wespennest' though Sophia Kennedy features on what is a dreamy and deep house cut awash with fizzing synths that radiant the same heat as a summer sun. 'Candidasa' is a more intense and dense sound with myriad different melodies all interweaving tightly. Two interesting cuts, as you would expect.

Review: Pampa offshoot Hart & Tief launched earlier in the year, via a split 12" featuring tracks by Soulphiction and Mike Denhert. This time round, fellow German producers DJ Koze and Robag Wruhme are at the controls. Koze kicks things off with "Driven", a clanking, booty-shaking fusion of metallic percussion hits, resonating electronics, dub techno motifs, and minimalist textures. It feels a little like a contemporary Berlin take on early '90s Sheffield "clonk" (think Sweet Exorcist's Clonk's Coming album on Warp), which is no bad thing in our book. Wruhme's "X-mop 198" is a much more straightforward, early morning techno bubbler, albeit with similarly clanking percussion hits amongst the thumping kick drums and restless, one-note riffs.