Photo Credit: Marv Watson

According to PitchFork, German producer DJ Koze announced the release date of the anticipated new album Music Can Hear Us and features Damon Albarn in a track “Pure Love.” This is Koze’s first album since 2018 and is set to release April 4, 2025.

“Pure Love” uses experimental sounds that highlight Koze and Albarn’s talent. The song speaks about pure love and about how it can be hard to be in love at times. “Told you I was OK/But that was not true/As I told you one day/I will come back for you (Uh-uh),” are some lyrics in “Pure Love” that invoke personal battles that are faced in a relationship. Koze and Albarn juggle with the idea of self-destruction within relationships and how you might withdraw from a relationship. 

The video itself follows arctic themes. It features a man walking through feet of snow which is parallel to the term “Pure Love” as snow is white and can be seen as pure. Powder snow is especially seen as pure as it is untouched. This allusion of snow and pure can also further be interpreted as cocaine. Cocaine is seen as white and pure which can be what the song is about as well. The self-destruction within a relationship can also be seen as self-destruction when dealing with drugs. After the snow is depicted the video then cuts to a polar bear. The polar bear is climbing a mountain that has no snow and is solely rock. This can represent isolation, further strengthening the ideas of self-destruction. 

Albarn said in a press release, “This tune has been through a profound metamorphosis over the last few years. I loved it as an egg; I loved it as a caterpillar; I loved it as a pupa; and I still love it. Thank you, Koze.” The album Music Can Hear Us is a follow up album to Koze’s Knock Knock which was released in 2018 which is why Albarn refers to the process similarly to metamorphosis as both artists have grown into their sound.