DJ Koze - Music Can Hear Us (2025)

Hamburg-based producer Stefan Kozalla, better known as DJ Koze, last released an album of original material in 2018, an eon ago in electronic years and one or two totalitarian sea changes past. If DJs reflect the world around them with their exploratory tastes and eclectic collaborations, you'd think the future was looking a lot more utopian based on Kozalla's fourth full-length Music Can Hear Us. Starting with "The Universe in a Nutshell" the album continues to Damon Albarn's Auto-Tuned warbling over the spindly plucking of what sounds like a Malian ngoni.

Ever since his playful "40 Love" threaded the sonorous pong of tennis racquets into a Kompakt excursion, Kozalla has designated himself a headphone-tripper who's not very avant at all. He's just a collector of pleasant sounds from around the world that he thinks you'd enjoy as much as he does. DJ Koze albums are more likely to fill your headspace than a dancefloor, but they're hardly impenetrable to casual chillout fans. "The Talented Mr. Tripley" sounds like the tune itself is underwater and slowly returning to the surface as the vocal filter gives way to intelligibility. Minimal ear treats splash in and out of the mix on "Unbelievable" like they're spelling out a melody without singing it. The hypnotic "Die Gondel" sounds like Andy Stott attempting reggaeton.

If Kozalla's going to time-jump with just an album or two per decade, at least he brings these disparate eras with him, joining Sofia Kourtesis and the Notwist on the same record. Hell, he even brings in the latter's Markus Acher to murmur new melodies over a 23-year-old sample of himself. And once in a while, Koze simply sneaks in a banger, like the urgent, siren-y synth that bisects "Brushcutter." He saves the two loveliest tracks, including a gamelan lullaby. It's to his credit that you won't be able to tell in a blind test what year this album was from in 2040. Or even now. © Daniel Aaron/Qobuz