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**DJ Koze - Knock Knock**
★★★★☆

Stefan Kozalla has always been something of an enigma in electronic music circles, a Teutonic trickster who's spent the better part of two decades confounding expectations and genre purists alike. By the time 2018's *Knock Knock* arrived, the Hamburg-based producer had already established himself as dance music's most unpredictable alchemist, transforming everything from forgotten disco gems to contemporary pop confections into his own peculiar brand of sonic sorcery.

The roots of *Knock Knock* stretch back through Kozalla's labyrinthine career trajectory, from his early days terrorising dancefloors with the punk-techno outfit Adolf Noise to his more refined work under the International Pony moniker. His previous full-length, 2013's *Amygdala*, had already signalled a shift towards more emotionally resonant territory, but *Knock Knock* represents something of a quantum leap – a fully-realised statement that marries his mischievous instincts with an unexpected maturity.

What emerges across these fourteen tracks is a masterclass in controlled chaos, where Kozalla's trademark maximalism is tempered by an almost zen-like sense of space and timing. This is house music, certainly, but house music that's been fed a steady diet of ambient textures, Afrobeat polyrhythms, and what sounds like the contents of a particularly well-stocked charity shop record collection. It's the sound of a producer who's finally learned that sometimes the most radical thing you can do is know when to hold back.

The album's centrepiece, "Pick Up," featuring Róisín Murphy, is perhaps the clearest distillation of Kozalla's peculiar genius. What begins as a relatively straightforward deep house groove gradually mutates into something far stranger and more compelling, as Murphy's vocals are stretched, chopped, and reassembled into new configurations that shouldn't work but absolutely do. It's pop music, but pop music that's been passed through some kind of beautiful, benevolent fever dream.

Equally impressive is "Seeing Aliens," where Kozalla takes what appears to be a fairly conventional vocal sample and constructs an entire universe around it. The track builds with the patience of a master storyteller, introducing elements – a wandering bassline here, a cascade of percussion there – with the precision of a Swiss watchmaker. By the time it reaches its euphoric conclusion, you feel as though you've been on some kind of journey, though you'd be hard-pressed to explain exactly where you've been.

The album's secret weapon, however, might be "Club der Ewigkeiten," a collaboration with vocalist Apparat that finds Kozalla in unexpectedly melancholic territory. Here, his usual playfulness is replaced by something approaching genuine pathos, as spectral synths drift over a rhythm that seems to exist in its own temporal dimension. It's the sound of 4am in the best possible way – not the desperate, grinding 4am of commercial clubland, but the transcendent 4am where anything seems possible.

Throughout *Knock Knock*, Kozalla demonstrates an almost supernatural ability to make disparate elements cohere into something that feels inevitable. His use of vocal samples – whether it's the pitched-down soul snippets on "Baby (How Much I LFO You)" or the gospel-tinged exhortations of "Homesick" – never feels gratuitous or nostalgic. Instead, these fragments become integral parts of new compositions that honour their sources while pointing towards entirely new possibilities.

The album's only real weakness is perhaps its own restless creativity – there are moments where Kozalla's magpie instincts threaten to overwhelm the songs themselves. But even at its most indulgent, *Knock Knock* never loses sight of the dancefloor, and there's something genuinely thrilling about never quite knowing where the next track might lead.

In the years since its release, *Knock Knock* has rightfully been recognised as something of a high-water mark for contemporary electronic music – proof that house music can be both cerebrally challenging and physically irresistible. It's an album that rewards both casual listening and deep investigation, revealing new details with each encounter while never losing its essential sense of joy and wonder.

Kozalla has created something genuinely special here: a love letter to dance music's past that sounds utterly contemporary, a maximalist statement that never feels cluttered, a work of