Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier aka German producers and live act BOOKA SHADE rounded off 2006 in style. The Berliners were named by the writers at Resident Advisor, the UK’s leading electronic music website, as the best live act and won the best album award for their second long-player, ‘Movements’. The album also featured in many other international end of year top 10 charts. Elsewhere on the internet, Pitchfork, the US music website, listed ‘In White Rooms’ as among their best songs of last year. Closer to home, Germany’s ME Sounds ranked ‘Vertigo’ amongst their ‘most important songs of all time’ while BOOKA SHADE won kudos in Groove Magazine end of year poll, selected as the No 2 producers and the album featuring in the top 10. Germany’s top DJs voted the band as the country’s best live act, and, adding to overall acclaim for the album was the fact that ‘Movements’ has also been nominated for the Plug Award in the US.
They’ve certainly come a long way since the early 90s, when they were a synth pop act. Later, they were seduced by the trance, house and techno they heard in Frankfurt club The Omen and started releasing records on R&S, Music Man, Tommy Boy and Sven Vath’s Harthouse imprint. They scored a big success with the 1993 trance classic ‘Una musica senza ritmo’ as Degeneration, and during the mid-90s on Dutch label Touché with the progressive ´Kind of good´ and ´Silk´.
By the end of the 90s, they needed a new direction and founded the Get Physical label with DJ T. and their old friends Patrick Bodmer and Philipp Jung, aka M.A.N.D.Y. Booka Shade are responsible for all productions and remixes by M.A.N.D.Y., DJ T., Sunsetpeople and most of the releases of Chelonis R. Jones. Get Physical has become one of the world’s most popular underground dance labels.
In 2004, they released their acclaimed debut album, ‘Memento’, on the label and scored huge hits in 2005 with ‘Mandarine Girl’ and ‘Body Language’. Subsequent live performances at the 2005 Sónar festival in Barcelona, playing support to Royksopp on tour and Mylo in London as well as warming up for Depeche Mode on the Berlin date of their world tour means that Booka Shade have earned a reputation as one of the world’s most exciting live electronic music acts.
Booka Shade are also in-demand remixers and have reworked Moby, The Juan McLean, Yello, Hot Chip, Depeche Mode, Roxy Music, Tiga, Azzido Da Bass and The Knife.
Booka Shade’s second album, ‘Movements’ was released in May 2006, featuring ‘Mandarine Girl’ and ‘Body Language’ as well as three other club anthems, ‘Night Falls’, ‘In White Rooms’ and ‘Darko’. These tracks were among last year’s biggest dance tunes, and ‘In White Rooms’ and ‘Night Falls’ were the two top selling EPs for vinyl distributor Intergroove in 2006.
While the album maintained Arno and Walter’s love of soaring basslines and epic melodies, they also flirted with slow motion hip-hop, electro and chilled Balearic house music. These variations meant ‘Movements’ was listed by US mag XLR8R among its top 100 albums of all time.
The ‘Movements’ tour has seen Walter and Arno perform at clubs and festivals around Europe and South America, with audiences at the Montreux Jazz Festival, TDK Crosscentral in London and TIM Festival in Rio de Janeiro won over by their powerful live act.
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