Booka Shade - Movements

One third owners of the powerhouse that is Get Physical Music, Booka Shade have firmly entrenched themselves in the world of electronic and dance music. From their debut album ‘Memento’, to this latest submission, their sound has evolve delightfully into a mixture which still blends lovely elements of eighties retro, bleepy minimal, pop and elegant beats. Having been strongly inspired by memories of time spent in Spain and Ibiza, the album is coated in jazzy, warmed and fuzzy beats, with synths and melodies that create an unmistakable ‘Booka Shade sound’. Anyone that has been to these parts would understand how the sunsets and sand grains could make you feel like this and further how it has lightened up the album.

‘Night Falls’, the opening track in Movements, is a nostalgic opening which set the benchmark for the remainder of the songs, encompassing much of what the Booka sound is all about. Catchy hooks, grooving melodies and something soothingly beautiful. ‘Body Language’ (which won the DJ award for Ibiza’s Track of the Season 2005) receives a re-interpretation on the album. It’s a slightly more casual, lazy affair, which still has that gorgeous bass through it and the complementary keys that characterise the tune so uniquely. The album version of Mandarine Girl (gratefully) appears just after the half way mark of the album, and even though you may never have heard the track, it has a quality which makes it seem timeless. I say timeless only because it feels like you have heard the song long before your ears have head the pleasure.

The peak of the album, for me (beside what has been mentioned), comes through ‘In White Rooms’, another epic, euphoric sounding track that is monstrously melancholy and saddened. Like the last set of a festival when all that is left is a bunch of diehards and a lot of rubbish. ‘At The Window’ is a short track that is purely piano keys, inspired by DJ Shadow-style atmospherics, it leads nicely into Darko, a track that again has a air of happy tears with it’s druggy keys and circulating snare pattern. Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier have done a delicate and attractive piece of art by combining lightness and dark, electro, pop, techno, house and classical instruments. In ‘Hallelujah USA’ they even allow for a small political message, with a darkish, bad-arsed down tempo beat that has a TV preacher obscurely sending his message in the dungeons of the track.

I think that this is one the year’s great releases, and they are definitely a duo that would have a live performance that would create ecstasy for the ears, body and soul. ‘Lost High’ is the last song of the album. Nathan Fake-esque and oh so lovely. That’s sorta how it makes one feel. Peace out.