Veröffentlicht
Apr 17, 2018
- Between collaborations with Caribou and producing a new album, DJ Koze hasn't had much time for pumping house tunes. He's released a few gems in that style over the years, going back to his spellbinding remix of "I Think About You" by Heiko Voss in 2003. "Pick Up," which appears as a ten-minute "12" Extended Disco Version" on his latest EP, revisits this dreamy sound, nailing a feeling that moves between melancholy and bliss. Also heard on the 2015 hit "XTC," this ambiguous mood is classic Koze, an artist with an uncanny ability to sound carefree one minute and heartbroken the next.
Everything about "Pick Up"'s melody and looped disco break is positive. Rolling with the dusty charm of a J Dilla beat, the sampled strings and guitar beam summer dance floors and good times. But the half-sung vocal, taken from "Neither One Of Us" by Gladys Knight, is pure sadness. (Midland sampled the same record in the less nuanced "Final Credits.") It captures a distinctly German brand of melancholy, often heard in late '00s tech house and tracks by beloved Berlin artists like Paul Kalkbrenner and Oliver Koletzki. But no one does it better than Koze, whose new single already feels like a classic.
Where "Pick Up" targets your heart, "The Love Truck" is for the mind. Cheeky but primed for club use, it's rare to hear such a tune from Koze. He lays down a hyperactive bassline that dances underneath bird calls, bleeps and a whispered vocal. Running for a hypnotic ten minutes, it's easy to imagine it dazzling a dance floor at sunrise, best deployed after a string of similarly minimal tracks. Koze is a master of understated house music with moods that change with the listener. His special touch makes for powerful club tracks like these.
TracklistA Pick Up (12" Extended Disco Version)
B The Love Truck