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Various Artists DJ Koze Presents Pampa Vol 1 Pampa

22.04.16

DJ Koze is on a hot streak. After a universally drooled-over DJ Kicks compilation, he’s back with an unmixed compilation on his own Pampa records, and it’s another peach. The album kicks off slightly strangely – not even Matthew Herbert’s dreamy but precise remix can rescue Lianne La Havas’ almost unbearably sad Lost and Found from itself. But this is a rare misfire. And once Koze’s remix of Roman Flugel’s delicate and melodic 9 Years blows the cobwebs away, the rest of the album is a beautiful, woozy insight into the Pampa philosophy.

Dntel turns in a sparkling, nostalgic track, all padded synths and chopped chimes. Michel Cleis’ Un Prince comes over like a lost and bleary Balearic ballad from Prins Thomas. And even the notoriously po-faced Mount Kimbie seem to have got the good-times memo, with the percussive, Maurice Fulton-esque Bells. Mostly, the track selection here is meticulous, with soulful motifs and gentle pop samples lodged between smudgy, summery rhythms, and Jamie xx/Kosi Kos providing the album highlight with the stupidly good Come We Go. The album closes with Acid Pauli’s Nana – a sprawling, redemptive piece of ambient techno – and a cut from Koze himself.

Occasionally, this compilation is too nice for its own good, but it’s hard to argue with selections from a DJ who has carved out a space in leftfield house and techno all of his own.