Stefan Kozalla aka DJ Koze aka Monaco Schranze lives and works in Hamburg as a club DJ, musician (International PONY, Adolf Noise) and remixer for Chicks On Speed, Bob Sinclar, Justus Koehncke and more of the finest German bands and projects and successful producer and KOMPAKT recording artist.
Although DJ Koze has had a taste of pop success with his band Fischmob (straight-up Hip Hop skills, poiltical content, dry humor, crazy spoken samples, prank phone calls, etc... ), he’s always been equally interested in experimenting with other forms of electronic music from ambient to break beats to wild sound collages from a myriad of musical genres.
An especially notable voyage in to uncharted musical waters, Adolf Noise (produced and performed by DJ Koze and his buddy Marcnesium) turned many a head around. Taking the artist into a deeper Electronic direction, “Adolf Noise“ features a far more abstract and unusual use of samples and grooves while keeping the listener on his / her toes by incorporating liberal usage of football commentary, television show snippets, radio plays, and telephone terror with drug-delinquents.
It was this record, that made people, that were normally more into Techno or Electronica, sit up and take notice and it is now these people who are his biggest fans on dance floors between Tokyo and Hamburg - a development of successfully melting a world of musical styles with the power-blending strength of Club Culture.
The year 2002 made DJ Koze the deck wizard of Hamburg trio International Pony, whose debut album 'We Love Music' (Skint/Sony) was received to critical acclaim.
As a live DJ, Koze builds his sets on house and disco tracks and uses his well-honed Hip Hop skills blending it all together in a furious mix, making it seem that the term “House Rocking“ was coined with him in mind.
The readers of Germany’s trend-setting SPEX magazine correctly voted DJ Koze the DJ Of The Years for 1999 - 2004 - a well earned title, playing numerous shows all over the country and in different parts of the world.