KZA is renowned in Japan as one of the greatest record collectors in a country famous (or should we say notorious?) for the obsessive gathering of obscure cultural artifacts. But this much-in-demand DJ is not merely a compiler.
A vital part of the nu-disco scene, KZA specializes in re-edits and reinventions of the classic canon of late-’70s and early-’80s disco, particularly in its currently red-hot Balearic- and Italo-disco variations. His style is far spacier, and more spare, than the better-known pop examples of nu-disco (think anything retro-futuristic — from recent Madonna to Sebastien Tellier), and that makes his first album a good fit with the rest of distributor Kompakt’s catalogue.
His maiden voyage includes forays into cod flamenco (“Aneugalamâ€), Nintendo beats (“Capricornâ€), hypnotica (“Unfaithfulâ€), Chicago house (“On&On&Onâ€), and, in “Gothenergy,†something that sounds very much like dance music for Blade Runner’s sexy replicants (nu-Vangelis, perhaps?). Much of Dig and Edit, by the way, would make for excellent CSI microscope-montage music in a universe more tasteful than the one in which we live.
