Album of the Week: Booka Shade ‘More!’

Album of the Week: Booka Shade ‘More!’

7 May, 2010 | 6.00AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Music News: album of the week, booka shade, get physical

The third album is often a tough one — a test of how far an artist can push his or her sound without alienating core fans. Booka Shade took a risk with their third album, 2008’s ‘The Sun and the Neon Light’, slowing the tempos and swelling their electronic sound with orchestral arrangements; critics were split, but it’s worth noting that the album actually sold better than its predecessor, ‘Movements’.

For album number four, ‘More!’, Booka Shade have come back to the floor-friendly grooves and hooks that they’re known for, but they’ve retained the song-oriented focus of the last album, resulting in a rich, dynamic blend of tech-house and electronic pop. We sat down with Booka Shade’s Arno Kammermeier to find out why bigger is better.

‘Scaramanga’

What made you decide to call the album ‘More!’?

It just captures what we had in mind when we sat down in the studio. We always talked about what we wanted to do with the album, and it was always more emotion, stronger beats, more energy. And we thought, ‘More!’ is the perfect title. Plus it’s another M-word. We already had ‘Movements’ and ‘Memento’, so this is another good M- title.

On the last record, did you go into it explicitly intending to do something mellower?

Yeah, pretty much. ‘The Sun and the Neon Light’ was a reaction to ‘Movements’. On ‘Movements’ we had these five major, dominant dance tracks, and we thought, there’s no way we want to compete with that album, it stands on its own. Also, there were parts of the show when we did the ‘Movements’ tour where we wanted to move more into a concert kind of atmosphere, instead of clubbing all the time. So we had all these moody atmospheres.

Also, at the time we were pretty tired from touring, and it just felt good to have some slower beats there. And then after that, we had a compilation of slow tracks called ‘Cinematic Shades, to show a more cinematic side of Booka Shade to those people who knew us mostly from the live concerts.

And then it was time to bring the energy back.

‘Teenage Spaceman’

What did you learn from the last record that perhaps you did differently this time?

The last couple of records were written on the road while we were touring the world, so the working method is pretty much the same. We always have a studio with us, and wherever we are, we can set it up and work. With the new record, it’s just that the atmosphere is much more up, much more positive. It’s interesting, there are those people who loved ‘Movements’, the real club people, who had difficulties with ‘The Sun and the Neon Light’, because it’s much more song-oriented. But it opened us up to the indie crowd, people who listen more to songs.

In the beginning, with ‘The Sun and the Neon Light’, we weren’t sure how people would react. But we felt very comfortable after putting it out and seeing how the live show progressed. We climbed the ladder on the lineups, for example — we headlined more and more festivals, or got on the bigger stages. So this showed that there was a general acceptance of the band. When we started ‘More’, we felt much more comfortable following the sound that we create. When you listen to the album, I think you’ll realize that every song has a very typical Booka Shade sound. We found our sonic universe, in which we can go back and forth, up and down, but it always sounds like Booka Shade. And that’s fantastic for us, we’re really happy about that. So the whole atmosphere during the production was very positive.

‘L.A.tely’

I can hear a lot of Depeche Mode in it.

The new one? You think so? For me, Depeche Mode is the greatest band in the world. We thought ‘The Sun and the Neon Light’ was more our Depeche Mode tribute, but whatever, that’s great! Not the worst comparison. [laughs]

How and when do you work on the road? I have trouble even checking my email when I’m traveling.

The way we work, it’s not like in the old days, with bands, where there’s songwriting, then recording, then mixing. It’s not like that at all. Walter’s very obsessed with the overall sound, so whenever he starts with something, it’s like a puzzle that goes on and on and on, and then at a certain point, the song is finished. But you can never really say, Ok, this is the songwriting, and this is the production and the mixing. It all goes hand in hand.

Of course, for the very final stage of the production, we sit here in the studio in Berlin doing the real mixdown. But a lot of the production is done on the road. As to when, of course, it’s a bit tricky. It can get a bit tiring when you do shows and you’re jetlagged, and you open up the computer and start working. But again, Walter’s very obsessed with it, so he can always work on something.

‘Divine’ feat. Dieter Meyer

I see that you guys are now doing some DJ gigs.

We had never DJ’d until last year. In the past we always said that we’re musicians and producers; DJing is a completely different art form, and we’ll leave it to the DJs. But it was just towards the end of the last tour that we thought, we definitely need a break from live playing, to find the spirit and also the joy in playing live again. Traveling constantly for the past four years, we were just tired, worn out. But still, we wanted not only to sit in the studio and write and produce the songs, we also wanted to know what’s going on in the clubs—what’s happening, what do the people dance to. This is where the DJing came in, and it turned out to be real fun.

We do a couple of shows this summer in Ibiza, we’re doing a little kind of residency at Space, three shows over the summer, and in some of those places where it’s very difficult to play live. We may go to Mykonos or somewhere, these typical party-DJ islands where you could never bring the live show.

‘This Is Not The Time’

How are you doing the DJing? Is it a ping-pong, tag-team type of thing?

It’s the kind of setup that other people would already call a live setup, basically, because we have Traktor and the Maschine, and then a Kaoss Pad and some other outboard gear that Walter uses. We always find it funny when we find other DJs that call this a “live” — there’s another step to playing live, for us.

But as a DJ setup, it’s cool because you can synch it, and you can bring in new loops from Maschine and tweak it. As producers, this is interesting. For us, it would be useless to start playing vinyl or CDs. But bringing together new tracks and new beats, and creating something new around it, is more the spirit of our music.

You’re doing a DJ-friendly version of the album, right?

It’s a more clubby version, which comes out only on Beatport. It’s not really remixed, you’ll still recognize the songs. It’s just that for the album and the CD, we really like it when the song structure is really recognizable, and it’s not too long. When I listen to albums at home or in the car, I never like it when there are two minutes of bass drum at the beginning and the ending. For the CD, it’s good to have the shorter versions. But what’s out on Beatport now are those versions that are more compatible for DJs, with more beats, and more stripped-down arrangements, so it’s easier to play out. But still, it’s the songs. It’s not pure club remixes.

‘Bad Love’ feat. Chelons R. Jones

What was it like working with Dieter Meyer and Chelonis R. Jones on the album?

Working with Dieter Meyer was a dream come true. I’ve been a fan of Yello since I was 12 or 13 years old, when I bought the first vinyl 12-inches. That was when they put out ‘You Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess’, which is a fantastic album. It still sounds extremely fresh. The voice was always very inspiring, and all the soundscapes that Yello created are amazing. I think when you listen to Booka Shade you can hear that we listened to Yello—the kind of layers that we like, of sometimes bizarre sounds that come together and have a real depth, this is what Yello created a long time ago.

We did a remix for Yello in 2006. We knew that, these are the kind of people, for example, that liked ‘The Sun and the Neon Light’. ‘Movements’ didn’t do much for them, but ‘The Sun and the Neon Light’ they liked very much. So it was easy for us to get in contact with them, and then we met in the studio and played some beats for them. They were very easy to work with, and wonderful gentlemen, really good people.

The other singer is Chelonis. He’s an old-time companion from the label. We produced all his first records and his first album; he was basically with Get Physical from the beginning. When we talked about having some vocalists coming in, he was definitely one of them. We didn’t want this typical featured-artist kind of album, where you just call a bunch of people that you’ve remixed, for example. You can imagine, over the years we remixed a couple of really big names, and it wouldn’t have been too difficult to call some of them. But this is not what we wanted. With Booka Shade, we always think it’s very important that people see the act as these two people that they know from the live shows, that it’s all very handmade. For us, it’s difficult to make featured-vocalist albums work, because it always sounds like a patchwork.

‘Havanna Sex Dwarf’

Having started your own label, what’s your relationship with Get Physical now?

We haven’t broken off from Get Physical. We still have the logo on our records, and we still very much promote and support the label. It was just that for the album, we felt that we need some more help from outside than Get Physical could offer. For example, when you do the first pressing of an album and you press the CDs for a worldwide release, the money you have to spend for the first shipping can kind of break the neck of a small label, because it takes a while until the money comes in. So we’re at this point where we said, let’s bring in some extra help so that we don’t pose any kind of risk to the label.

With the Booka Shade/Get Physical setup on Beatport, this is how we have our own little imprint for Booka Shade. But we are still as much involved in Get Physical as we can be. We’ve never been really involved in the A&R; that was always more M.A.N.D.Y.‘s thing. It’s more when we do albums on Get Physical, that’s the point where everybody has to have an opinion, because this is always a major financial undertaking, so everybody has to really say yes, this is something we want on the label. But for the 12-inches, it was always more the M.A.N.D.Y. guys who picked the songs. Philipp from M.A.N.D.Y. comes from the record side, and for him it’s much more fun to work with other people’s music. I have to say, I’m a musician and a producer. I sometimes enjoy listening to other people’s music, but I have enough trouble with my own! [laughs] If I do listen to someone else, I’d rather not listen to dance music.

‘The Door’

It can be very distracting for producers: if you’re constantly keeping up on what’s new, it can take away from your own vision.

Sometimes it’s really fun, like when we prepare for DJ shows, it’s really interesting to flip through the new stuff. But then it’s also for special occasions that we do the DJ sets. And it’s also for special moments in the night. With Patrick and Philipp, they can check out music for afterhours and early-morning sets, because they like to do that; as a DJ you want the diversity, you don’t always want to play the same stuff for the same kind of night. But for us, we have the live shows, and when we do the DJ sets, they’re at 2, 3, 4 o’clock, more energetic times, and this is what we look for with the music we select.

‘Donut (Interpretation)’

What’s the setup for your live set like?

We have backing tracks coming from Ableton. It’s usually like eight or 10 stereo files for each song — the bass drum and the bass, the high frequencies, mids, low frequencies, the snare drum, etc., all separated. And then Walter plays a lot of the melodies on the keyboards, and he does all the vocoding, and he does a lot of EQing with the mixing board he has on his side, and he has a lot of effects, like the Kaoss Pad. On my side, I have the electronic drum kit, where I have all the sounds from the productions — it’s all custom made, it’s not like factory sounds. I run it on a laptop running Logic and Battery, and then I have all kinds of possibilities to tweak these sounds with reverbs, delays, echoes, and things like that, and then I have the cymbals that give a lot of live energy as well. There’s a lot happening.

It’s always interesting. It’s a setup that runs stably and we have backup systems, but of course playing live there can always be something that goes wrong. And people will hear it when something goes wrong, but that’s also the very charming thing about electronic live music, that it doesn’t sound exactly like the CD version. It sounds different, and we have all these different arrangements for each song. So the version of ‘In White Rooms’, say, isn’t the version that you know from the record, it’s always special live versions.

‘No Difference’

Do your sets change much from gig to gig?

We do have a setlist, like any other band has. It’s not like we go on stage and start with a loop and see how it goes. But we do make changes. At the moment, especially at the beginning of the tour, we make changes from week to week. You still want to try out the new songs, and then you think there are eight bars too much here, and you want another breakdown here, so at the moment, it’s still a lot of work. Actually, today we’re working on the setlist for this weekend and for next weekend. We will do a special version when we play the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, that’s going to be a special set with some other songs in there. So it’s not always the same set, and it will change even when the tour is running smoothly, we’ll change songs every two or three weeks, just to keep it interesting.

*Photos by Tim Dobrovolny

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