Photo:
Booka Shade are back. Well in truth they havn’t really been anywhere. Their last album housed no less than four international no.1 club hits and sounds as fresh today as it did in 2005. The fantastic thing about ‘Movements’ was that you couldn’t just have it on in the background. It made you listen to every beat and every beat made you ecstatically happy you’d bought new speakers with your last wage packet and not trainers, or at least wish you had.
So for, Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier, what’s left after world domination? Bask in the glory? Fuck that. Halfway through a 150-date world tour, here comes album number three. As it is, Booka Shade have gone for a more song-based approach this time around. The beginning to ‘The Sun & The Neon Lights’ is immediately subtler and there are no less than, wait for it, four vocal tracks to enjoy. The trademark simplicity is still there, on opener ‘Outskirts,’ but the centre stage is taken up this time by a series of violins, that ensures a beautifully laid-back entrance not dissimilar to ‘Chicago’ on Groove Armada’s ‘Vertigo’ LP.
The paranoid-sounding ‘Control Me’ is the first vocal and it’s warped delivery pairs with the equally moody ‘Redemption,’ which begins with haunting, minor-key melodies. The sinister overture develops into a huge electro bassline that vanishes as quickly as it appeared as if a flashback from a previous night’s excess. Credit where credit is due, producing ‘Movements II’ would have kept a lot of people very happy and their legacy intact, but that was never likely to happen with the consistently innovative German pairing heading into their fifteenth year of production.
Listening to ‘Charlotte’ is like drinking Mountain Dew all over again. The light sugary texture arrives after a half-dozen dark and low-tempo numbers, ensuring ‘Charlotte’s’ VIP ticket to a plethora of festivals this summer. Evoking the intensity of their previous heavyweights but pairing a disco-loop with vocodered vocals creates a more US house proposition than before. Production is perfect and the breakdown is an absolute killer.
‘Solo City’ describes the tale of a man split from his lover finding solace on a night out by using a delicate guitar riff, manipulated back and forth over a signature Booka Shade dub it contrasts first single ‘Planetary’ with startling dexterity. Released as a double A-side with ‘City Tales’ - not on the album - the first few bars have a very Pendulum feel. The eerie almost carnival sounds pave the way for a sinister-sounding synth that screams and screeches across a heaving bass line.
The most innovative track is the country-tinged ‘Dusty Boots’ with a loop, that to be perfect honestly, is dancefloor fucking caviar. This has to be remixed, stretched and sped up; yet, there isn’t much work to do. It is bettered only by ‘Sweet Lies.’ Lasting under four minutes, it is ideal in length as it encapsulates that perfect moment of the night where you would rather be nowhere else in the world. Sauntering effortlessly into a crescendo of waves and digital guitars, the production is once again faultless as the duo illustrate the full range of their talents.
‘You Don’t Know What You Mean To Me’ takes us full circle, calming, settling and distilled, it was unsurprisingly written by Merziger as his newborn child slept beside him. The story ends where it began; night into day and back again. Where ‘Outskirts’ began the tale of bright noon’s and heady nights, ‘You Don’t..’ closes the heavy hardback novel with sleepy smiles all round. This isn’t what you’re expecting, but it’s brilliant nonetheless.
