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DJ Koze: Music Can Hear Us review – party-starting nostalgist is as playful as ever

Appealingly rough around the edges, the Hamburg DJ’s fourth album voyages from a Damon Albarn amapiano track to harsh 90s drum’n’bass

The Hamburg-based producer has long advocated for the idea that music is a living, breathing organism: his dance tracks may be able to whip 70,000-strong crowds into a frenzy, but they’re also oozy, globular things that seem to absorb the influence of anything they come into contact with. Koze is tricksy with the press – often making up stories about himself then debunking them years later – but his music is as good a form of memoir than any, each new album documenting his gradual transition from psychedelic oddball to pensive, party-starting nostalgist. It feels a little like walking around a city on the Sunday before a bank holiday, stopping at any bar or club you spy on your travels, thanks in part to Koze’s deft incorporation of various global dance styles.

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