dj koze - kosi comes around

kosi comes around descriptions coming up.

here's 'don't feed the cat':
http://s24.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0CILUZHJXTR142XWUP0QXZP5YU

(song is cool regardless ;) )

Ronan.

Having listened to the exclusives, it's apparent why they made it a double. Almost everyone steps up.

its an effects controller that processes input sounds in realtime. basically you sample sounds into the pad and move/distort/swoosh them across the soundfield with your finger in realtime. the backwards/flipped/reversed/swallowed section of thom yorke's vocals on "everything in its right place" are kaoss padded to hell.

I like DJ Koze

I didn't actually like Brutalga Square, so have not really bothered with DJ Koze, but I'm intrigued now. A lot happens in that track.

Laux by miles and MILES and MIIIIIILES

i am totally, totally obsessed with this:
http://s49.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=16NQQJELCFSON38TDXCLQ3R3H2

but nothing, nothing could be worse than he vocam on slam's "this world", wighnomy remix or no. is there a dub version of their remix, cos i really like the tune, but the vocal is unbeliveably bad.

this on the other hand, is kinda stupid, but i quite like the falsetto bit. doesnt last very long though.

generally, shit vocals have got to stop though, i agree. "selection 3" to thread.

The falsetto does warm some small place in my heart, though.

xpost - Does anyone know if the original "Built This City" will be on the 12" or is it just the Justus/Mayer mixes?

this sounded amazing in Glasgow that faithful night.

also, i think that if the baxendale vocals in the mayer mix were sung in german instead of english, we'd all be like 'ooh that sounds so cool and dark and mysterious!' etc etc instead of hating it, ha.

geeta so otm re: if it were in german..

the over-egged amateur dramatic vocals less so, but I can certainly see my opinion changing in the right circumstances (ie what Ronan and Geeta said).

If anything the remix is yet another example of how effortlessly good Mayer's music sounds when he has a vocal to frame. This reminds me a lot of the "Happiness" remix with its insistent pulse. Everyone who says that the falsetto bit should last longer is spot-on though; I think he could have looped it for ages and ages and ages. It's not as good as his mix of Nathan Fake's "Coheed" though.

Of the (standalone) Mayer remixes i've heard I'd rank them as follows:

The Modernist - Protest Song
Frank Martiniq - Adriano
Superpitcher - Happiness
Nathan Fake - Coheed
Antonelli Electr - The Vogue
Miss Kittin - Happy Violentine
Baxter - I Built This City
Paul Nazca - Emotion
Egoexpress - Telefunken
Agoria - Sky Is Clear
P.W.O.G. - Kind Of Prayer
Donna Regina - Star Ferry
Sven Vath - Face It
Matthias Schaffhauser - Nice To Meet You

... Time for a compilation I reckon.

i guess so, but still i prefer this vocal meme to the shouty-newyork-yelphouse cf tiefschwarz eat books at any rate, which is like, my worst nightmare.

http://s38.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0WYXCWP9G9BEL3O4TQZTGYQC8P

At the risk of sounding ignorant for not knowing why, is this produced by the same guy? I couldn't find any information on discogs.

http://www.achewood.com/comic.php?date=06022003

On my walk between the tram stop and my house on the way home from work it sounded AWESOME. So much so that I played it again when going to get some ice cream and it was merely VERY GOOD. I fully expect it to be AWESOME next time though. It's one of those tunes.

(also tim, what's the first german house aaliyah homage?)

It sounds a bit like some of the people who've made Superpitcher style records, Richard Davis or Lawrence etc, or like what an English person would sound like trying to copy Superpitcher! Did Ewan Pearson or someone actually make this tune?

(haha just kidding that was mean)

MRI's "Blue", which is a quasi-cover of "Try Again".

On first listen (which is unreliable) "Tell Me About It" isn't as good as the "Je Regrette Everything" remix though, or "Heroin" (the other track it's a bit like). Still nice though, and it might well grow on me heaps. It loops that opening piano chord and ghostly "ohhh no" sigh from the intro of "I Can Be" and adds some lightly simmering acid sounds.

x-post x 2

That chap from The Blue Aeroplanes! It's Dead Ringers like in it's verisimilitude.

in fact, im not sure whether i like the original baxendale or the remix more. thanks for putting them both up!

Although hearing the speak-and-spell bits always just reminds me of how great the Paul Rutherford track on Ivan Smagghe's Death Disco is.

thomas fehlmann - schone grusse
http://s52.yousendit.com/d.php?id=33DEQUY31AQS81BT0P14H9WQSK

Köhncke's "Krieg" is my favorite of the new tracks, I think -- the Kaito one being a close second. Mikkel, Rex, Field: wrong sides picked.

the mayer "i built this city" is still genius.

Has anyone seen the cover to Total 6 yet? Apologies for the design geekery, I just hope they didn't go with that hideous orange they're using on the fliers...

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa???
i wish it was orange. purple sucks

Come on, say it to his face.

Superpitcher played "Krieg" in NYC and it already works a dancefloor wonder when it abruptly switches to the perky and taught dance section 4 minutes in.

The Field, "Action"--holy shit, "Reach Out I'll Be There" riff! awesome stuff. between that and the 12-inch I'm very excited for whatever s/he/they do next.

BTW I think everyone loves the falsetto in the Baxendale remix, it's the spoken word section people are a bit dubious about. I'm not, but I become dubious when I imagine being someone else listening to it - i.e. I anticipate the adverse reactions of others.

I become dubious when I imagine being someone else listening to it - i.e. I anticipate the adverse reactions of others.

I feel that way about nearly everything I like :|

http://s37.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=14JSW9BSP63QY1CIZR9MJTJ5SE

I like the Superitcher mix, but it kind of... doesn't quite do enough to justify it's length perhaps? Or what it does is great, but not for all 9-ish minutes? Perhaps I'm not making enough of an effort to hear it as it would be played 'out'.

KLIKS PRESENT KOMPAKT
SATURDAY 18.03.06
CONCORDE2, BRIGHTON

http://kliks-net.com/

Main Room:
DJ KOZE (International Pony, Hamburg)
THE MODERNIST - live (Popular, Düsseldorf)
LEE SMITH (IDJ Magazine/kliks)

Bar:
MARK LERMAN (kliks)
CARL WICKER & GRAHAM SCOTT (kliks)

Three years ago, 'minimal' house and techno was virtually non-existent in the UK. Fast forward to the present, and seemingly every club, DJ and magazine is going crazy for the stripped down sounds of labels like Poker Flat, Minus and, of course, Cologne's mighty Kompakt.

As the first British club to dedicate itself to the minimal scene, Kliks has been responsible over the last six years for UK debuts from countless international guests, and built itself a reputation as one of the most respected and rocking club nights in Europe in the process. So, for our inaugural party at Brighton's notorious Concorde venue, we've joined forces with Kompakt to present two of the label's most important and electrifying artists...

DJ KOZE:
Currently Germany's biggest DJ (voted DJ of the year for the last five years in the highly respected SPEX magazine), DJ Koze is without doubt the most formidably talented exponent of minimal turntablism in existence right now. A former runner up in the World DMC Mixing Championships, his jaw-dropping deck skills are in constant demand the world over. Renowned for his wildly eclectic, club-shattering musical selection, you're as likely to hear him spin the Beatles and Otis Redding as you are Plastikman, all tied together with blisteringly on-point technical skill. He's released a string of hit club records on Kompakt, including last year's acclaimed 'Kosi Comes Around' LP, and is also a member of Skint Records' hugely popular electro-disco act International Pony. As if that wasn't enough, he's also behind the chart-topping German Hip-Hop trio Fischbein. We await his debut Kliks performance with baited breath...

THE MODERNIST - live:
An undisputed legend of European dance music, Jorg Burger (aka The Modernist) started releasing records way back in 1988 with his long-time partner, Wolfgang Voigt (aka Mike Ink, founder of Kompakt). Over the next decade, the pair assaulted the world's dancefloors with a bewilderingly prolific surge of classic records, combining the raw intensity of early Detroit techno with their own unique brand of distinctly European, acidic trippiness. Under a plethora of aliases (including The Bionaut, Burger Industries, Autobianchi, and currently, Triola, plus many more) he pretty much defined what is now known as 'minimal', and is cited as the key influence by countless contemporary producers and DJs. Along with Voigt, he founded the Delirium record store in Cologne, which went on to form the basis of the Kompakt empire, as well as editing Dance Attack Magazine and releasing a bona fide mainstream smash LP on EMI (The Bionaut's 'Lush Life Electronica'). Burger's rich, timeless, elegant sound has yet to be surpassed by any of today's laptop generation, and his super-rare live performances have now reached near-mythical status. Don't miss the chance to catch a genuine pioneer in action.

LEE SMITH:
Co-founder of Kliks and original Brighton minimalist Lee Smith has been spotted face down in numerous ditches across Europe this year. Somehow, he always manages to rock the dancefloor and cobble together a coherent minimal reviews page for IDJ magazine, which you'll know is quite an achievement if you've ever seen him on a night out. He writes for loads of sites and music rags and is one of only four UK DJs to have played at Kompakt's seminal Total Confusion club in Cologne.

BAR - KLIKS RESIDENTS:
Our highly-trained residents' squad will be on hand to provide everything from delicate, pristine ambience to terrifying 80s squat-punk. They're all great DJs, but sadly hate each other's guts these days.

Up and down and all over the place, in that 'i can't beleive he's making me dance to this, but i can't help myself' kind of way.

Anyone recognise any tracks?

There's also another Koze video on Youtube where they show a clip of his cover of "Love Can't Turn Around."

pretty sure it was actually Fischmob, just sayin

I'm just going to revive this to talk about how totally great Reincarnations: The Remix Chapter 2001-2009 is. The little sped-up vocal sample at the end of the Matthew Dear remix that kicks it off ("Thank you! We've all enjoyed being here tonight! You've been a great audience! We're gonna close with a song for all you dreamers!")--I melt, every time.

I love the sequencing, too. Seems kind of random at first but the more I play it the better it flows. Matthew Dear into Koze vs. Sid Le Rok is really beautiful, the Battles track sneaks up on you from there, and the way "I Think About You" and then "Minimal" march out snaps you to attention without sounding jarring in the least. I will be really happy if I like another album as much this year.

Has anyone on here heard Music Is Okay? It's apparently the first remix compilation--at least the sticker on the new one says that it (Reincarnations) is his second, and from what I can see on Discogs Okay is probably the first. I've never seen that one; I'm presuming it's out of print.

unfortunately i haven't heard all of this yet, but the remix of 'strange behavior' by blagger is a good 'un.

I kind of wish this was mixed but it is really good. Also missing is his fantastic remix of Ada that's starts off with a Jay-Z sample

You mean "Eva"? That's on the forthcoming Ada Mixtape #1 comp on Kompakt.

Yep, that's the one. The mixtape looks cool but is she ever gonna get around to putting out a follow-up to Blondie?

I've been wondering the same about Koze--as Koze, of course. Is it horrible of me to have not really paid any attention to International Pony?

No, that recent IP album wasn't as good as it should have been.

I have some basic idea of the IP style but haven't dug in enough--I think I've been afraid it wouldn't measure up to the Koze stuff. But then I don't think any dance producer has measured up to Koze's stuff for, oh, half a decade now.

any techno producer, anyway

I think International Pony would be better if they simply wrote more songs, and relied less on musical sketches as filler. That said, I still love all of Pony's albums. And the doublepack with Pepe Bradock remixes of "Bubble in the Bottle" is great as well.

Do you have "All the Time"? It's excellent.

I think I'll second Sherburne's take. And i think the Sweet Madness's tracklisting (hello, "Solid Gold", hello "Bubble in the Bottle", hello the "Royal Pennekaums", hello party people...) shows that IP also concur.

Maybe checkout fellow IP member Erobique's latest 12" - Endorphin Machine - if you want to investigate the current IP sound without tainting Koze's quality control reputation.

Mango Cookie!!!

I just noticed that the track has another six minutes to play out and got really excited.

mrs bojangles / dr. fuck... anyone heard it? i want to hear it.

"Mrs. Bojangels/Dr. Fuck" is really really good.

mrs bojangels is fun, very immersive

http://images.contactmusic.com/images/press/dj-koze-amygdala-album-cover-press.jpg

is pretty awesome

I do like it a lot but it does sound enough like (the more recent parts of) Reinterpretations to seem to suffer slightly in comparison. Still, nobody sounds like koze.

Yeah, this is great. Really glad that he dips into 'Smorning' (probably his most underrated tune IMO! IMO!) territory on 'Das Wort'.

how'd he get away with the Marvin sample anyway?

as much as he's a techno hero etc, his sense of pop is the best thing about him. unique.

i'm listening on npr but which track is the one with the big brass breakdown. incredible.

I don't think that's a sample. Great album though.

The track with Ada, as lovely as it is, is a bit of a missed opportunity...they were two of the biggest reasons (along with Michael Mayer) for getting into house/techno as a teenager. I guess I was hoping for more than a Kings of Convenience cover.

Still, been playing the album on a loop all day. So good.

Pretty sure he samples Marvin thrice actually. There's the obvious "We are all sensitive people" bit, then it sounds like he's cutting up the 'woahs' from "What's The Matter With You Baby" on "Don't Lose Your Mind", and i think that distorted vocal at the start of "Ich Schreib Der En Buch" might be him too

the bass on "magical boy" is really sublime

His sampling aesthetic feels v different to pretty much anyone else in dance music. How he mashes sounds and motifs together. It's like ideas colliding into one another somewhere in the lower intestines of the world.

This feels like an Avalanches album done by Koze

The 'sensitive people' part sounds re-sung to me, not like a sample. Could be wrong though.

it's a damn good impression if so

yeah, pretty sure its not a sample

digging this album, not a fan of m. dear's vocals, though.

yeah otm, liking this but the vocals on that song are horrific

Not a fan of Matthew Dear in general so am braced for that one in advance. Is this out yet?

out next week, streaming at http://www.npr.org/2013/03/14/174333356/first-listen-dj-koze-amygdala

Yeah I think using Dear twice is just perverse really.

ah he's not that bad. more dull than irritating imo.

he's dull on one of them but actively horrifying on the other

Call me strange but isn't the whole idea of DJ Koze using skew-whiff/unexpected/'whatever the hell he feels like' approaches very him? Seems like you're reacting not to a bug but a feature.

I'm always more irritated the second time but I'm not yet sure if that's because it's so much worse or it's just like, "wait, what, again?" Possibly a bit of both.

xpost Ned you're correct but cannot one distinguish between good and bad variants of that.

Also it's not like Dear sounds particularly weird.

Or rather he sounds "weird" in exactly the way you'd expect if you'd heard any of his recent albums.

i can't remember being horrified, or the vocals really standing out either way. i'll take a closer listen next time.

i ordered new speakers recently, really can't wait to blast this through them.

xpost the lead single of the last album was good imo

I think that what lifts Reinterpretations above this slightly is (a) the array of different voices and (b) the fact that Kozalla respects them less.

This is still great though.

reincarnations?

Yeah sorry that.

Ned you're correct but cannot one distinguish between good and bad variants of that.

More than fair! I dunno, I didn't mind either appearance, just seemed to be part of the whole collage without skipping a beat.

bit disappointed with this so far, gave it a couple of listens yesterday, really struggling with the vocals :-/ it's way more contemplative/indie/magnolia/ikea lifestyle techno than i was expecting. missing the dark/surreal/comedy/sweatysex side of his sound.

haven't got a feel for the second half yet tho, maybe there's more of that there.

yeah, listening again, def enjoying the latter half of this album more. after the one with pizzicato strings/marimba/moody pads/deep house chords starts things get better. being a bit of a bummer here, 'kosi comes around' is one of my favourite records, had super high hopes/expectations for this.

Koze did a mix for Fader http://www.thefader.com/2013/03/21/fader-mix-dj-koze/

the R Kelly edit! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!!

pretty great alright

The album's great, 'don't lose my mind' is a beauty. some of the vocals definitely rub me up the wrong way, but it's strong enough to put that to one side

das wort is amazing

^cosign

I think it’s my best work so far, and now I’m falling down like an elevator. All (my) music will be worse. I feel it. I’m over the climax, I realize.

You’re trying to say that you don’t think you can surpass it?

What? No, I already realize that it’s going down now. My time is over; I need too make space for the younger generation now.

This seems like a weird moment in that interview, it's difficult to figure out if he's being ironic. Nevertheless, I have been wondering about the difficulties facing new producers and DJs in German techno-minimal-house these days. Seems to be the same names around quite a bit these days.

where should i eat before swans?

lol wrong thread

I was all set to write this album off as nice-but-unexciting" up until the halfway mark but then it really takes off. The vocals actively get in the way in a lot of places as well, they're so uninspired.

Overall I think Kosi Comes Around is by miles the better dancefloor record, and the remix comp does the whole kaleidoscopic multi-vocalist thing better than this one could hope to do. Then again how many producers could put out an album that's as good as a compilation of their best remixes, especially one that's put together as well as Reincarnations?

I never thought of Kosi Comes Round as an album - just a collection of bangers.

I never listened to the remix comp cos I'd heard them all already.

don't really get the annoyance at the vocals - i mean i know a man singing is just horrendous and how dare he - but they provide the quirk that ensures this isn't just say... a compilation of previously released tracks.

I never listened to the remix comp cos I'd heard them all already.

It's actually really well put together, you can tell he's really thought about the sequencing so it works in one listen and flows like an album.

don't really get the annoyance at the vocals - i mean i know a man singing is just horrendous and how dare he - but they provide the quirk that ensures this isn't just say... a compilation of previously released tracks.

I'm not sure I agree with that actually, this would still feel very much like an album (and an event at that) even if it were entirely instrumental, or if the only vocals were sampled. It wouldn't be much poorer for it either.

It's actually only Matthew Dear who really gets in the way, he actively ruins Magical Boy, and his presence on the otherwise fantastic My Plans over the line from full to overstuffed.

The other vocalists are fine, but not exactly bringing their A-game... like when I think of really great vocal house records the vocalists either transform the track into something amazing, or are so integrated with the groove that you couldn't imagine it without them - try and think of any Luomo record without the vocals. I don't really get the sense of the vocal tracks here falling into either camp, the singers feel inessential more than anything else. Maybe that's a result of most of the vocalists here being producers who also happen to sing over their tracks, rather than singers per se, I dunno.

That said I think this is a great record, although I like it a lot more if I start at Das Wort. The production on some of these songs is incredible, at its best its like listening to a really lush soul record that's constantly being refracted into different shapes.

I'm not sure I agree with that actually, this would still feel very much like an album (and an event at that) even if it were entirely instrumental, or if the only vocals were sampled. It wouldn't be much poorer for it either.

i disagree really, a lot of it is clearly made to have vocals, this criticism implies the vocals were just tacked on after the fact of making a dance track, there's o way that's the case.

just because the tracks have enough distractions to stop the vocalist taking centre stage doesn't mean they're not important - but yeah he should totes have got some divas, woo, #ilm.

Even if it is made with vocals in mind, it doesn't mean those vocals couldn't be different/better. Divas probably wouldn't work though.

localgarda on some prime arguing-with-oneself shit itt

at least i have the brain power to make a sandwich.

Even if it is made with vocals in mind, it doesn't mean those vocals couldn't be different/better. Divas probably wouldn't work though.

that's a different point to you saying it should be instrumental.

I'm not saying it should be instrumental, I'm saying it wouldn't be radically worse if it were instrumental, partly because there's so much else going on. And that the vocals that are actually on these tracks, by and large, either don't add much or actively detract from the enjoyment.

I'm also disagreeing with the point that the vocals "provide the quirk that ensures this isn't just say... a compilation of previously released tracks".

personally i feel like slightly camp male vocals of this sort are a part of the original kompakt appeal, but to each his own.

In general I agree with you (the camper the better more often than not), just maybe not in some specific instances here.

He does have form like this, the album is actually quite like the International Pony stuff, I quite like that aspect of it.

The title track and "Magical Boy" are amazing pieces of music: vertiginous and protean. I'm glad I stuck with this past the okay first third.

The vocals don't annoy me - I don't know if that was down to this thread being a warning that made the prospect seem worse than the actuality.

What I really like about this album - and its obvious cousin, Robag Wruhme's Thora Vukk, is the way that it's a home-listening dance album that isn't "electronica" - i.e it isn't just music for the brain, it's very much a pop record based around techno. The production is so crisp and precise on the drums but the sense of softness balances it all out. Texturally it reminds me of shoegaze/indie more than proper dance music, but these tracks could only work with a techno framing and production.

I don't want to start any "there are no dance music home-listening albums" bullshit, but I feel this is different from, say, John Talabot or Blondes' recent albums, in the way that it approaches its own dancefloor potential as an aside more than a key component despite using many of the same compositional and rhythmic structures.

Texturally it reminds me of shoegaze/indie more than proper dance music, but these tracks could only work with a techno framing and production.

This is silly FWIW.

that's rude!

em·e·sis (m-ss)
n. pl. em·e·ses (-sz)
The act of vomiting.
[Greek, from emein, to vomit; see wem- in Indo-European roots.]

The Mano Le Tough album is a better home listening techno inspired listening experience but this Koze album is fun too.

that's rude

otm, give it a rest.

a pop record based around techno

This is exactly what I like about this record.

Shoegazing and indie textures?

I don't mean so much swathes of guitar and noise, more a delicate sensibility in all those acoustic loops. "Texture" isn't the right word I guess? It's more on the surface, it reminds me of the more interesting moments on early Cardigans/Saint Etienne albums but with stronger grooves that still feel incidental to the songs themselves.

This is why I lurk more than I contribute, I can never say anything clearly, logical or insightful.

don't worry about it boxedjoy; i've been here over a decade and have yet to say anything clearly, logical or insightful.

i like koze a whole lot but this record bored the tits off me. i reserve the right to totally revise that last statement at a later date.

i feel like the new coma album, despite being almost entirely instrumental, works as pop-based-around-kompakt-techno far better than amygdala, which feels almost a bit sluggish in places, regardless of what the vox do or don't bring to it. i'm not sure koze's ever really grabbed me though, i've always found something a bit...off about the textures etc he uses - neither kosi comes around nor reincarnations hold a particularly special place in my heart and i def remember disliking his "minimal" remix compared to the original

I like the parts where it gets schlager more than pop. Like, the unashamed cheesiness of it is really great. 'Das wort heist: Love!' And stuff like that

I definitely get more out of this record listening for textures and melodies than I do for groove per se, and a lot of it clearly isn't concerned with the dancefloor at all. I wouldn't call it shoegaze sensibility in the slightest but otherwise I don't think Boxedjoy's comment is that off-base.

Oh no it was only the shoegaze/indie reference which I found amusing, the rest is spot-on.

But I'd also say that in general terms it's not as uncommon an approach in dance music as the comment implies; conversely, the way in which Koze is singular - that overly-intimate, queasily physical quality to his music, like the sound of your organs talking to one another - is so specific I'm not sure there are easy parallels in rock or dance.

This album is great. I gave Kosi Comes Around lots of play 05-07 as well.

The sounds of this one are up to the times, which is good. Koze endures. It's maybe a bit more accessible for the broadening audience of electronic music (which some people seem to take partial issue with in this thread); and it's generally less mix-friendly than its predecessor. But like Kosi Comes Around, it's one of those albums that immediately pops with playability — in both rhythm and melody - and it continues to offer more in replay value. For me, it's the most exciting full-length in the genre released this year. At least so far. BOC and Daft Punk will be noble contenders in the next few months. I predict that upcoming releases of newer artists (like Mount Kimbie) will trail behind.

I listened to this and got very, very annoyed by how staid and mannered it was up until it hit "Marilyn Whirlwind", which made me go out and buy the album

The sounds of this one are up to the times, which is good. Koze endures. It's maybe a bit more accessible for the broadening audience of electronic music (which some people seem to take partial issue with in this thread); and it's generally less mix-friendly than its predecessor. But like Kosi Comes Around, it's one of those albums that immediately pops with playability — in both rhythm and melody - and it continues to offer more in replay value. For me, it's the most exciting full-length in the genre released this year. At least so far. BOC and Daft Punk will be noble contenders in the next few months. I predict that upcoming releases of newer artists (like Mount Kimbie) will trail behind.

― Eggs and the marketing board behind them, Thursday, April 4, 2013 8:52 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

someone tell this guy the news about BOC :/

...what??? Nooooooooooooooooooo. Well, the point stands.

Further, I think a lot of the criticisms of this (boring, too indie) stem from the album opener, which is perhaps the weakest track.

I'm like 7 minutes into this and I already want to vocals to stop :(

A reward goes our to anyone who brings me Matthew Dear's vocal chords, dead or alive. (To be fair, I don't mind his voice so much as his egocentric and self indulgent urge to put his vocals on fucking everything - especially remixes of other people's tracks)

lol of course lex hates the matthew dear vocals, they're actually pretty great.

Didn't expect this to be so completely laid back and woozy, nothing half as direct as the bangers on Kosi Comes Around. Reminds me of the Wolf+Lamb / Soul Clap DJ Kicks. Best track's probably the one with Apparat.

xpost

i can see thinking they're serviceable or that they round out the track(s) in a way that is somehow appropriate, but great, purely as a vocal performance, is a stretch.

mb not but they have character. at least it's not panda bear.

"at least it's not actual dogshit"

Anyone else finding this record just makes so much more sense in the spring sunshine?

Definitely an album for great weather. (See also the new Daft Punk, I suspect.)

+ the Classixx album

Fab: http://www.factmag.com/2013/06/17/fact-mix-387-dj-koze/

Loving the Sohn track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AslPYSm7jfg

And speaking of mixes, this is stupid great:

http://www.thefader.com/2015/06/09/stream-dj-koze-dj-kicks

the koze remix of geduld by wolfgang voigt is maybe not great but quite interesting, the youtube is 240p shit but anyway

Great mix. This is great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZgslfTeLdU

Enjoying this: https://soundcloud.com/pamparecords/pampa024-dj-koze-xtc

Yeah, excited about hearing this mix, will download asap when I get home.

Between Koze and Actress, great year for DJ Kicks!

Also love his titles: Music is Okay; All People is My Friends; I Haven’t Been Everywhere But It’s On My List.

This mix sounds perfect in the cool air of a sunny Saturday afternoon. I had never really bought into the hype of Marcel Fengler's "Jaz" but it sounds so good in this mix, and there's no bad time to hear Portable's "Surrender" either.

Jaz is great on it's own!

Anyways, this mix is basically just a compilation of tracks with kind-of-irritating vocals, no?

Love this mix. Exactly none of the vocals bother me.

Also, last week I learned his name is pronounced "kot-zuh" and it means "vomit" in German. Also, ppl say that he is an actual crazy person irl and they're worried about him.

The stretch from the Session Victim track to the end is perfect, the rest is just really enjoyable despite itself.

this "mix" would be much better without all the dicking around. Impeccable selections of course.

actually I take it back, this 2 Bears track is horrible

DJ Koze Presents Pampa Vol 1 is mostly good, a few too many self-indulgent moments of whimsy, but generally reminding me that it's my favourite contemporary dance music label.

yousendit/slsk???
― marc q, Thursday, July 21, 2005 10:16 AM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

Koze's remix of "Operator" is one of the top tracks from 2016 IMO

Such a good remixer

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/18789-michael-mayer-joe-goddard-for-you-dj-koze-mbira-remix/

New track from new EP is a jam

wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE63vMzb3UE

haha we both just posted. i posted in roisin, but yeah super pumped for the koze record

there's a phillip sherburne feature on koze - i think it's in pitchfork? - that's really good.

yeah, I read the thing in Pitchfork a few days ago and it's excellent. really looking forward to the new album.

https://pitchfork.com/features/profile/72-hours-in-paradise-with-dj-koze-electronic-musics-trickster-genius/

"brutalga square" still rattles and stomps like a mfer

good feature indeed

i really fancy him.

One of the best producers in the game

His Herbert remix with Dani siciliano smokes

I need a little light here.

Juno record shop needs to stock the new LP A$AP so I can complete my order

Am just on my second listen of Knock Knock. It's lush.

Haven't heard it yet but I am going to just buy the thing because I know it is going to be super good

It's sprawling and rather uplifting/'optimistic'!

this is so so good. weird & wonderful

early favs are bonfire, pickup and planet hase (mano le tough collab)

It’s out :)

Very weird n wonderful

it reminds me of ... radiohead?

in a good way.

ok maybe that's just a few tracks (the kurt wagner one especially)

Some mash of Herbert and matmos

I’m not convinced by all of it but Lord Knows does bring it in spades

there's sections of this that feel a better version of what the avalanches seemed to be going for on wildflower

I think he needs to focus a little bit more but he’s got a really good ear for arrangements and he’s great at bending and mixing genres. I love his work, but again, I feel he spends too much time setting moods and textures and not enough actually sending his ideas somewhere more interesting. He’s close enough to being one of the most brilliant producers of the past 10+ years.

That said I think I’m liking the new album even better than amygdala and that’s one of my favorite albums of this decade.

I think he needs to focus a little bit more

That’s probably true

Koze rocking filter house vibes in 2018 turns out to be just what I want on a hot may bank holiday

Another parallel is dark night of the soul

Kurt Wagner sounds like a mechanical Peter Gabriel here

Kurt Wagner sounds like a mechanical Peter Gabriel here

Sorry that wasn’t worth the double post

new album sounds incredible on first listen. personally love the lack-of-focus, it made that first listen a lot more unpredictable. highlight for me so far is the fluttering-soul of "Baby (How Much I LFO You)," but i need to listen again in full cause there was a lot more i loved, but i wasn't paying attention to song titles.

koze + roisin did a two hour show on nts last friday:

https://www.nts.live/shows/guests/episodes/dj-koze-roisin-murphy-4th-may-2018

I’ve been enjoying this. I especially love the frequent key and tempo changes in his recent work. I also love albums that are mixed like a mixtape regardless of whether they were mixed on a console. It reminds me of Kenny Dixon Jr. or Matthew Herbert.

Is anything from this getting club play?

Some of the vocals on this are p awful

Pick Up can definitely be worked into a house mix.

Listening to it today it feels like an updated albeit lesser version of Daft Punk’s one more time. The groove is very similar in both, same sort of bongo percussion loop before the kick enters... based around two chords which I think are even Fmaj and Cmaj in both. Is anyone else hearing it?

I’ve been spinning this nonstop to get to the bottom of how I feel about it. Music of my teeth is pretty corny Disney shit. Scratch that sounds like erykah badu and is dope. Lots to like in the production including some gnarly mangled cat synths but on a song like “this is my rock” the song isn’t compelling to me until the outro so sometimes I think that’s confusing - cuz them im ambivalent.

Pretty funny that koze reps himself on Jesus

One other production tic I like is how in Jesus the vocal goes from harsh and robotic to beautiful in seconds

Ah yes “scratch that” does sound like Badu! One of the highlights for me.

Hadn't read anything about this so was not expecting the sample of The Gist's "Love At First Sight"; as startling as when I first heard Pantha du Prince's "Circle Glider".

Is the horn line that comes in on "Muddy Funster" at 3:20 playing the Police's "Walking on the Moon"?

Somebody’s gotta get Bjork in contact with DJ koze. Opener and closer are almost Vulnicura Esque. Nice to hear the reprisal of the sample from I haven’t been everywhere on colors of autumn

Is anything from this getting club play?

'pick up' seems destined for many a sunrise set in ibiza this summer

Yeah not much of this as as club friendly as
His other one off tracks but pick up is def tight

been waiting for the right time to listen to this . tonight is the night i think

Enjoy! Xpost

"Pick Up" made me think of "Music Sounds Better With You" when I first heard it, the structure is similar to my ears.

Haven't had a chance to play this but I am very excited to see The Gist being sampled!

Worth noting there’s extended versions of both pick up and seeing aliens. They bang

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9Kmpwbc9rY

extremely into knock knock

I know it's everyone's favorite, but I'm pretty obsessed with "pick up". like a melancholy air france. so basically the best music ever

it's sad to think / I guess neither one of us / wants to be the first to say / goodbye

where are brad and tim

Omg a dj koze produced Bjork album would be so good, I hate what Arca has done with her sound.

If you like pick up peep the 10 min edit.

Also the seeing aliens extended destroys the original.
This is my favourite record this year. Sound wise it towers over everything in terms of innovation and ideas

Like that casino slot machine sound on track 2 is so weird but works perfectly

listened to the 10 min version a couple of times -- what am I missing that is different, other than an extra 4 minutes?

other early favorite for me is "planet hase". sounds like balearic dam-funk

Kevin you’re not missing anything really - it’s jusr longer with a longer fade but it seems to just loop the original elements yeah. Also of note there’s b sides to this record. Pm me if need be

thanks ross, I heard “love truck” else is there?

am really into “baby” now

There’s also nein Konig nein

pick up 12" is just about my favourite record i've bought all year

much more into the back half of this than the front

Same man

Pacing is so weird on this record. The Murphy and pick up tracks bring it back to life and it soars onwards. It’s like he reverse engineered the comedown - the high comes later

I think my prior comparison to dark night of the soul stands.
Like the sparkle horse - Lynch record this is featured with guests and there’s an aesthetic diversity? But personally I prefer the banging second half

Been digging through the eps too and recommend

XTC - solid aside and fairly banging bside
Rue burnout - nice piano house track

Feel like this could do with having a few tracks and/or singers shitcanned. Like I don't know who Eddie Fummler is but I never want to hear his 'Moving In A Liqueeeeeed' vocal ever again.

There are almost no good reasons for vocals on electronic tracks. You don’t need a singer to validate your music. At least he isn’t singing himself. Electronic producers who also sing are the worst.

When you consider that wipes out a massive chunk of all house music that's quite a statement. Problem here is that Koze himself can't really write songs, or the vocalists he chooses can't. They all sound like these disembodied heads grafted onto the top (same was true with Matthew Dear on the last record), by and large the tracks would lose nothing without them there. It's no coincidence that the three vocalists who do work here (Roisin Murphy, Speech, even Kurt Wagner) come from much more songwritery backgrounds.

His comments about house music annoyed me as well, for reasons I can't quite put my foot on:

"But the mood of house music is really limited. It was sensational for me to discover Kerri Chandler, for example. I thought, wow, this is deep and cool. But I began to hear more emotions in folk music. Why do we have to stick to two house chords? This is what I'm trying to work on. We can have more emotions in this music, but we have many formulas that always sound the same.

Like I vaguely get what he's going for here - building tracks out of four or eight-bar loops does tend to limit harmonic development but it's a structural necessity for house music and doesn't necessarily limit emotional range. But Koze's tracks are all built out of loops and samples as well, there might be more piled on top of them but the basic mode of construction is essentially the same - ie nothing like folk music or other supposedly more 'songful'/'emotive' genres.

Brother - save that for the controversial opinions thread, that’s just uh what???

Matt I get your point and will concede not all of the vocals are successful here - I hate the Jose gonzalez song. Clearly koze stepped outside his normal remixes - eps to make a “proper record” for better or worse. His reasoning about house music above is pretentious imo, it comes across as some Mighty Mouse shit. By and large I’m tired of all artists talking about their art and wish they would do what peej does and have some class n let the music speak for itself.

Anyway you’re otm that this is nothing like folk - perhaps the problem is koze is straddling the line between pop songs and house music without fully giving over to either, which makes the album a flawed masterpiece imo

Artists often convince themselves that they're being really transgressive when they're not. Maybe helps them break through internal barriers, idk.

Also bld is a big Underworld fan. But also doesn't seem to be joking. So again, idk.

You're ... welcome.

My comments are coming from decades of defending electronic music from Rock fans who dismissed it. Ross' use of 'proper record' is getting at the issue. I feel some electronic producers, take Matthew Dear for example, believe vocals add weight and realness to their electronic sounds. This may not always be the case, and yes, I love Underworld, I love Bjork, I love Someday and It's Alright and all the vocal house classics. Koze has been using vocals for a while, so I realize this likely wasn't the right album/artist to drop that comment on, but hopefully my position is clarified. I love electronic music, and I believe electronic music is as meaningful and powerful without lyrics or vocals, and sometimes, I believe artists use vocalists to legitimize their work unnecessarily.

I feel like the vox are cut up and produced to sound like samples and that that’s the point; the “sloppiness” is intentional and sort of an homage to the range of vocal presences in electronic music. While certainly ‘integral’ a lot of vox on early dance feels sort of “grafted on” on a mix level, imo, but then that’s just part of the overall sound. But yeah they’re def not pop songs. It really does sort of have an avalanches vibe

i wanted to like this record but i'm just not feeling it. most of the lyrics are embarrassing including the roisin murphy ones and "pick up" is good but there are literally hundreds if not thousands of equally good filter disco house bombs out there. i want to like his production and do to a degree but i get tired of what to me sounds like what paintings made on an ipad look like if that makes any sense.

a good vocal track is everything but they seem to be hard to do lately? maybe for artists leaning indie-tronica? louie vega seems to put out a classic vocal track once or twice a year.

Electronic music can be enjoyable with vocals, with bongos, with airhorns, with MLK speech samples, who gives a fuck? The thing that killed rock music was precisely this gatekeeping, purist bullshit that stagnates a genre.

^^hear hear

this is Angelique Kidjo in p4k today:

I get tired of people who call themselves purists. Before you start talking about “purity,” look at yourself: Are you pure? What is pure in your surroundings? What is pure in nature? The rhetoric of purity, that’s what brought Hitler to power—looking for a pure race. We are not perfect, and that’s why we are brothers and sisters. The fact that we keep ourselves divided is exactly what the people in power want us to do.

Ah, good old Godwin's law.

pet peeve: godwin's law refers to invocation of the third reich as a debate tactic following a long back and forth, not any mention of hitler

Moka otm

heh, 'invocation' not really the word I was going for there tbh but you get me

The vocals are innocuous enough on this to not bother me, grafted xpost was a good choice of words.

I do think the beeDEEGEE record handles vocals better as an album full of guest stars. The vocals seem less of an afterthought

The problem with Koze albums is usually that he doesn't fuck around with the vocals enough, this definitely has its moments in that regard but he's such a great remixer when he doesn't have too much respect for the singer.

His remix with Dani siciliano is peak vocals for koze

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4fSS36Xve4k

pet peeve: godwin's law refers to invocation of the third reich as a debate tactic following a long back and forth, not any mention of hitler

uh - I developed Godwin's Law of Nazi Analogies: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one

Of course this is pedantry, but it might alleviate that pet peeve of yours ;)

godwin's law is dumb tbh

The problem with Koze albums is usually that he doesn't fuck around with the vocals enough, this definitely has its moments in that regard but he's such a great remixer when he doesn't have too much respect for the singer.

― Matt DC, Friday, 8 June 2018 12:43 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think this is part of a broader drawback of this album which is that he doesn't approach it enough like a producer/remixer, with a few exceptions.

I mean a lot of this is great but I'll keep drawing for the two Reincarnations comps ahead of it, I think.

I said in another thread that it seemed to me a bit of an accident of fate that Koze had become such a feted artist ahead of, say, Kalabrese, and listening again to the latter artist's 'Rumpelzirkus' album from 2007 I tend to think that album is like if Koze remembered to keep his jokey side present but sufficiently in check to focus on compelling grooves for a while.

Godwin's Law: You can't mention Hitler online, nor quote anyone mentioning Hitler

Maybe appropriate for that Kidjo quote on precisely those grounds.

And to invoke this within the context of 'purism'. I dunno, there's been tons of flat-out amazing dance music produced from a purist mindset all the way across electronic music from Detroit techno to Marc Acardipane to FWD>> Not sure why we have to reach for Hitler so quickly, seems like a fetish or something.

Anyway, also haven't managed to get into this record yet, have no profound thoughts or observations about it.

Also not sure why Pick Up has seemingly been automatically nominated as hit worthy. I mean, it's fine. I don't hate it, but seems pretty innocuous.

Tim otm re approach.

It seems he’s going for a more accessible ideal than some of his bsides or eps which tend to have long drawn out reveries. Also, lord knows why he truncated seeing aliens as the 8 minute version is deeply weird and jarring in the best way. Also the pacing is so weird on this record, opens up with a tim burton esque track which would give no indication to a new listener to keep going imo. Also as stated the 2nd half is much better. Plus would’ve preferred the original “I haven’t been anywhere but it’s on my list” yo colours of autumn which takes the guitar loop sample and adds rapping

Fuck how many times can I say also. Early morning sorry

Pick up makes me think of the article about Avicii talking about the key to universal appeal is to have lyrics that are easily understood by anyone & emotional but kind of empty of meaning, something like that

Lyrics to pick up aren’t empty tho

We’ve all felt that way

Finally, a 12-inch release for Al Kent's infinitely superior Gladys Knight/Melba Moore mash-up - which is everything Koze's boring "Pick Up" could have been, if only he could have been arsed. I've been waiting for this for months, since hearing it on the radio just before Christmas.

https://soundcloud.com/milliondollardisco/pick-me-up

if I play scratch that sufficiently loud, I can hear the backing for pick up very faintly in the background. which could mean murphy recorded the vocals for scratch that over pick up and koze just spun it into a new track. or it could mean kozes just fucking with me, which feels just as likely.

Quite enjoyed this: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/aug/02/demons-dj-koze-summer-anthem-genius-bangermeister

i never listened to the koze produced r**s*n m*rphy album that came out whenever because she turned out to be a shitty person obviously, but since finding the instrumentals on youtube i've been listening to them every day for the last two weeks and it's becoming my summer soundtrack

is this ethically bad?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJqwPlz2_EE

(meant to link to playlist, apologies for the god awful artwork)

I wouldn't feel bad or see it as ethically bad, outside of the fact you're giving her a bit of residual income perhaps. If anything Murphy's reveal was a bit of a rug pull for DJ Koze. Dude was happily putting some sick production work together for her and now that music, much of which was really funky and quite well done, has a disgraced legacy that's possibly having a financial impact, assuming his income was tied to the success of the record in any way. The fact the instrumentals are out there gives me hope I can maybe enjoy the music without Murphy involved at all! Basically a new DJ Koze record...

Good lord that cover art though - fucking hell I'll never get over how bad that is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp01UJBVP-s

new album music can hear us out 4 april. the single featuring albarn is quite nice although idk that albarn's voice really adds much to it