After their highly collaborative 2017 release 'Galvany Street', Booka Shade's Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier are paring back for their new album.
The powerhouse German duo are synonymous with house and minimal dance music. They’ve known each other since their school days, and first played their fresh, sexy beats to discotheques in the 1980s.
Booka Shade’s debut album was released in 2004, but it was ‘Movements’, their third album, that sealed their status as colossal forces in the dance music world.
From sweaty, underground German clubs to a headlining slot at Coachella, the duo have done it all and continue to experiment with new production styles and live elements.
After experimenting with multiple producers on ‘Galvany Street’, you decided to return to a more familiar Booka Shade sound for ‘Cut The Strings’; what was the thinking behind that?
[Walter] Our inspiration comes from everything around us, people we meet, places we go. It's one of the privileges of a travelling musician to be exposed to many different cultures all over the world; and as a musician, the aim is always to find new ways of expression.
On our previous album, 'Galvany Street', we experimented with pop songs and a lot of vocals; we collaborated with a member of Kraftwerk; we produced a Dolby Atmos mix. It was a great time. This gave us a lot of energy to return to what we are originally stand for, melodic, club music. On our new album, 'Cut The Strings', we return to the club sounds we love so much.
This release is also going to be less vocals-heavy, after you spent a lot of time gradually introducing more and more vocals into your tracks. How did you choose the vocalists for ‘Cut The Strings’?
We always had the tendency to overthink things when it came down to album productions. This time we had the aim to let it flow and not to stress out with concepts and requirements.
We had the first contact with Troels Abrahamson, who is the singer on 'Cut The Strings', a while ago and finally it worked out that he could write and sing something for us.
We are fans of his voice since we’ve heard the[DJ] Kölsch song 'All That Matters' for the first time. Daniel Spencer is a very talented singer and songwriter who sadly left the music industry in 2017 to work on other stuff, but we still had these little vocal lines from him on our hard drive from the 'Galvany Street Sessions' which were the perfect fit for our song 'Lost'.
What would you say is the common link between the tracks on the new release?
The songs have one thing in common: they all have a special club feeling for us that we experienced when techno came up in the early '90s. The plan was to have less song structure [and] more track thinking; aside from that we had no rules and let it flow.
You both spent a lot of time in the pop scene as producers for other acts, soundtracks and commercials. While the Booka Shade sound is divergent from those projects, do you think the experiences in those spaces informs your sound in any way?
We have a very eclectic way of writing and producing music and I think this comes from the fact that we produced so many different styles of music, such as reggae, trip-hop, commercial dance and electronica.
Also we collected a lot of sounds over the years during these pop years that we can use in our Booka Shade productions - all kinds of guitars, orchestral recordings, pianos, drums etc… tons of terabytes.
How do you think your songwriting process has evolved since you first released ‘Movements’?
We always try to challenge ourselves and not to fall in to a routine because that's what makes music boring. After 'Movements', instead of producing 'Movements Part Two' we did a darker, more cinematic album named 'The Sun And The Neon Light'. We always try new things out but still keep the typical ingredients of the Booka Shade sound: melodic, groovy, and cinematic.
You introduced live performances into your sets before a lot of other electronic and dance acts followed suit - how do you think the space has progressed now that many electronic musicians experiment with live elements?
I think there are very good live acts out there, Kink for example or Stephan Bodzin, but probably not enough. Last year we had to face the fact that there is not enough space for our big show on festival dance stages anymore; they have huge LED walls and lights on the stage but most of the time just a tiny space for the DJ/live act.
Nowadays we have a much smaller setup so that we can fit in any DJ booth in the world but still with the trademark instruments: the keys and the drums.
What innovations are you seeing in the electronica scene today? Are there any acts in particular that you’re keeping an eye on?
The young generation is combining different styles much more than we did in the past; there are no boundaries in between the different genres anymore, which is great. Bicep is relatively new in the dance scene and they did the best electronic album 2017, we think. I think we can expect a lot of great stuff from these guys in the future.
What do you enjoy about the Booka Shade live show?
We just had a wonderful show on the Days Like This Festival in Sydney and we could feel how the audience and us united and had a perfect party night together. These are the moments why you accept all this travel-jet lag-lonely-hotel-room bullshit when you're on tour.
You've recently toured Australia; do you have any favourite memories from your previous sets in Australia?
Days Like This Festival in Sydney was a highlight, but also the legendary Prince Bandroom in Melbourne is always amazing and gives us goosebumps every time. Australia is always very good to us.
One of the best moments we had in Australia was the first show at The Metro Theatre in Sydney in 2007; when we came on stage in this beautiful and packed venue and started to play, the audience screamed louder than the music as soon as the bassline from 'Night Falls' dropped in. An unforgettable moment.
The rest of 2018; what else is in the works for Booka Shade?
We will tour our new album 'Cut The Strings' in Europe over the summer at festivals and in clubs. For example, we have the great honour to support Kraftwerk in Stuttgart and play the legendary venue Brixton Academy again together with Gorgon City.
Also big festivals like SW4 (South West Four) in London or SONAR in Turkey are on the tour plan before we head for North and South America in late Autumn. I'm pretty sure we're coming back to Australia for a second round in 2019 as well.
What's your favourite app at the moment, and why?
It's Instagram at the moment because we do most of the communications with our fans via this app and I like to see where our colleagues hang as well.
If you were having Scenestr around for dinner, what would you dish up (don't worry, we don't mind takeaway)?
All vegans please don't read this, but I'm pretty good at cooking the perfect steak with potatoes and steamed vegetables. Basic but always good.
What's your favourite way to waste time?
Watch YouTube videos from amazing tennis players to learn and improve my skills.
