Booka Shade

chilled electro // synth-dance

Observing a healthy balance between pop appeal and experimentation, the German duo Booka Shade concoct unusual blends of modern 4/4 sketches and timeless listening titles. They emerged as an electro-house outfit, but their latest CD, Movements, takes a more measured, deliberate approach to electronic music, reminiscient of Sasha’s excellent work on Airdrawndagger. My fave from their new LP, “Body Language”, has this round bass from the keyboard dials intermingling with a surgical precision with a guitar sounding like its strings are wet bamboo. A remixed cut of the track won the last “Ibiza Track of the Season” award. “Mandarine Girl” features heavier synth chordal progressions posed against a four-to-the-floor bass beat.
Considered musical taste with mass-appeal sensibility.

Booka Shade – Body Language (interpretation)
Booka Shade – Mandarine Girl (album version)
buy this cd

Posted by Paul Irish on Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 under electronic.

11 Responses to “Booka Shade”

  1. Anonymous said on April 13th at 3:17 am :

    WHOA!!!
    veryvery moving…
    love it

  2. AngerBoy said on April 13th at 10:17 am :

    I’m so happy you’re posting music again – quite a dry spell there for a while. :O)

    Thanks for the music.

  3. unverzagt22 said on April 13th at 5:59 pm :

    I’ve got an 8 hour drive ahead of me early tomorrow morning… This will be the perfect set of tunes to get me rolling on the highways. Clean and crisp like freshly bleached sheets – I love it!

  4. Runman said on April 13th at 11:11 pm :

    That would be highly tuned “wet bamboo” I’m sure I’ve heard them before somewhere, and decided….nup. Liked the first track here though, lost interest half way through the second. As always a worthy post, which widens my horizons. TVM

  5. each note music blog said on April 14th at 11:57 am :

    Very nice, thanks for posting this, Im ready to hear more

  6. Knobtweakers said on April 15th at 12:59 pm :

    Thank you for the tip. I wasn’t aware of Booka Shade. By the way, I’ve restored the link to your site on the Knobtweakers sidebar. =)

    – Eric

  7. evoltekno said on April 16th at 6:57 am :

    Good Group and gooood songs!

    Thanks to this blog to show us new musics!

  8. nicolaspy said on April 17th at 11:16 pm :

    thank you paul for opening my ears up to this great duo. I can’t wait to pick up one of their albums. Great drive in the beats and sweet rythm that question meter.

  9. Anonymous said on April 25th at 11:25 am :

    I knew Booka Shade from these two as massive house tunes, but had no idea they were also had their own artist albums – on hearing “In White Rooms” on a blog somewhere I had to go and get this album and their earlier one, Momento (available from iTunes).

    Both are fantastic, but the second album sounds like where they really nailed the sound – whilst Memento is quite dark, Movements would almost be cheesy if it weren’t for the minor keys and melodies so beautifully juxtaposed with the uplifting melodies to create some really emotional house music.

    As well as these two tracks, “In White Rooms” is the standout – beautifully emotional melody and subdued house beat, as well as the lovely, more chilled out “Wasting Time” with it’s vocodered refrain vaugely reminiscent of Utah Saints “Lost Vagueness”. Anyway, I’ve gone on quite a bit, but the point is Booka Shade are really quite something special in the house world and I urge anyone who enjoys to definately go out and buy “Movements”!

  10. Anonymous said on April 25th at 11:27 am :

    FYI, I got “In White Rooms” from over at Music For Robots (http://music.for-robots.com/) – that’s the track that’ll sell the album to you!

  11. Anonymous said on May 23rd at 1:11 pm :

    ALL I CAN SAY IS BOOKA SHADE MAKES ME PRACTICALLY CREAM MYSELF….

    can’t get enough!!!!!

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