hypersongs

DJ Koze

A Hamburg producer and DJ, born Stefan Kozalla in Flensburg, who moved from German hip-hop through Kompakt techno to the sample-built house of Knock Knock (2018), whose "Pick Up" turned a Gladys Knight ballad into pensive disco.

Fischmob to Kompakt

Stefan Kozalla was born in 1972 in Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein, and began as a hip-hop DJ, taking second place in a DMC championship (Wikipedia says the German one in 1991, XLR8R a DMC contest in 1988 at sixteen). He moved to Hamburg in 1993 and co-founded the hip-hop group Fischmob, whose 1995 debut album sold more than 50,000 copies, according to XLR8R, before the group dissolved in 1998. Around 1996 he began the experimental Adolf Noise project and in 1998 formed International Pony with Cosmic DJ and Erobique; Adolf Noise released "Deine Reime sind Schweine" with the writer Max Goldt in 2001.

His techno records as Monaco Schranze came out on Kompakt from 2003, and his debut album Kosi Comes Around followed on Kompakt in 2005. He started running Pampa Records in 2009, co-founded with Marcus Fink, and put out the remix collection Reincarnations: The Remix Chapter 2001-2009 that year. Amygdala (2013, Pampa), with guests including Caribou, Matthew Dear and Apparat, was his first album to chart in Germany and Switzerland and won an Echo critics' award; he made the DJ-Kicks mix for Studio !K7 in 2015.

Knock Knock and since

Knock Knock (May 4, 2018, Pampa), a 78-minute album with sixteen tracks, took more than four years to make, and Koze produced it all himself, in Spain. Guests include Roisin Murphy, Jose Gonzalez, Speech, Sophia Kennedy, Mano le Tough and Kurt Wagner. It reached number seven in Germany and scored 85 on Metacritic; Pitchfork gave it 8.8 and named it third among 2018's albums, and Resident Advisor's Matt Unicomb wrote that Kozalla can sound euphoric one minute and heartbroken the next. In his Vice interview he named hip-hop, 9th Wonder and J Dilla as constant references. He remixed Gorillaz's "Humility" in 2018, played the Sydney Opera House in December 2019 with Roisin Murphy, and produced Murphy's Hit Parade (2023) and Marteria's 5. Dimension (2021).

Music Can Hear Us (April 4, 2025, Pampa) has fifteen tracks and guests including Damon Albarn on "Pure Love", Soap&Skin, Sofia Kourtesis and The Notwist; Pitchfork named it Best New Music and it reached number four in Germany. He lives in Catalonia and Hamburg, avoids Berlin's club scene, rarely uses social media and tours only a few times a month, according to XLR8R.

Albums

  • Knock Knock 2018 · Pampa Records

    The third DJ Koze album: sixteen tracks of sampled soul, house and guests, made over more than four years.

Songs

  • Pick Up Knock Knock · 2018

    Track eight of Knock Knock: a disco loop under a Gladys Knight vocal, the album's second single and Pitchfork's number five song of 2018.

Sources

  1. DJ Koze, Wikipedia
  2. DJ Koze: behind the magic, XLR8R
  3. DJ Koze Knock Knock interview, Vice (2018-05-29)
  4. Music Can Hear Us, Wikipedia