When Roisin Murphy turned up on DJ Koze's 2018 album Knock Knock, the Irish singer's grainy, muted vocal textures turned out to be the perfect foil for Koze's oddball funk-smoothing over the crags, tempering the tone colors. Last month, the two musicians reunited on a vinyl-only single, "Can't Replicate," stretching Murphy's breathy purr over a taut deep-house groove; now they shift into downbeat disco with the cozier "CooCool." Koze has always seemed happiest when he's being squirrely, and he tweaks tiny details-tin-can horn charts, a filigree of jazz guitar, what might be a cicada humming to itself-over a bed of warmly nostalgic '60s soul until the laid-back track practically vibrates with antic energy. Whereas Murphy was steely and commanding on "Can't Replicate," adopting an ice queen's poise, here she gives way to her most starry-eyed instincts: "That ol' magic's back/A warm feeling flooding/A new age of love/An incandescent joy." At the chorus she slips into nonsense, rapturously proclaiming: "I hear a coo coo/I hear a cooing/Sweet lover coo coo." It's a song about the birds and the bees that asks, What if it could be springtime all the time? Or as Murphy herself puts it: "Let it be silly season, darlin'/All year round."
