Booka Shade deliver More!

Sold out shows and genre defining albums have propelled Booka Shade to the upper heights of the music charts and beyond. Already booked for our Electronic Beats Festival Prague, we sat down with the Teutonic duo and discussed their upcoming album More!, what makes them tick and why they started doing yoga.

So I know More! is going to be your fourth album what should people expect? More beats? More dancing? More great music?

Walter: When we did this album we had this discussion of what we wanted to achieve. We said we wanted more of this, more of that. It’s about more emotion, more intense beats. With Booka Shade, there is this culmination of good grooves and our typical melodies, atmospheres over solid beats. This is the typical trademark sound. Also, because it’s a phenomenon in the society, everybody wants more satisfaction. The kids are in this mood wanting more of everything. It's not that we criticize something (pause)…

...it’s just accepting the fact.

W: It’s a fact. That’s why we have this… What is this in English?

Arno: Exclamation mark.

Is there a specific message or emotion you would like to convey with this album?

W: I don’t know if you know the last album The Sun and the Neon Light?

I do.

W: Well, it was very cinematic and very deep, with some more downbeat stuff on it. Now, we decided it's time again to show people more of what we do at our live shows. The plan was to produce an album similar to the live shows, with the same drama, same style. But unfortunately, it didn’t really work and we realized it needed to be different from a live show CD.

That’s why we included other material, but the generally we really wanted to have more songs that we could include in the live show. On the album perhaps you can feel that the first song is more like the feeling of going out and in the end [of the album] its more like the sun coming up.

A: It gives you the feeling of ‘the club’ but with much more melody.

On that note, I noticed More! utilizes more vocals than your previous albums...

A: Well we didn’t want a 'featuring' album - we didn’t want this typical thing of having the five biggest singers. We feel that if you bring in too many vocalists, you tend to lose the overall sound of an album.

With Yello, the track isn’t really even singing, it’s more like talking. We have been fans since we are kids…

W: Yello still sound so fresh and modern.

A: The way we layer sounds, you can see there is something about Yello that we enjoy. We did a remix of ‘Oh Yeah’ in 2006, so a contact was already there. We met in Zurich and we spent a wonderful afternoon at their house. Well… their villa.

(Both laugh)

W: Chateâu.

A: They’re great gentlemen and it was fantastic. Our tracks inspired Dieter Meier who was constantly saying, “if I hear your music, I think of sex - I think of women.”

(Walter laughs)

A: That’s very inspiring. So that was easily done. Boris Blank also contributed with some of the beats and some sounds that he brought in, so, that was great.

It seems every couple of years you come out with a new album - does the process get easier over the time? You mentioned you wont be using any of your old samples?

W: Well, for one, we need more and more time. First it was 8 to 9 months, this time it took us 16 [months to finish the album]. To be honest, I don’t know why it’s like that. Maybe, it's because there are so many possibilities. Normally, you work on a track for six weeks or longer and end up going back to the demo version. But, I don’t know why we have this two year circle with touring and everything…

A: It also, gets more difficult to make songs that excite you. To push it further, this is where it gets difficult… Well not difficult, but exhausting.

W: Challenging.

A: This is where the work starts.

W: The other thing is we don’t start with any blueprints. When we got started with Get Physical there was a time where all this hard techno was happening in the clubs and everyone was tired of minimal. In a way: brutal beats. So, when we opened the Get Physical imprint it was exactly the right time to do something different. And it was a great, but now its changed. The flair has gone.

The music business is always developing but there is nothing that we hear that’s like us. So there is no blueprint; we live in our own universe. There are elements that we can use that can be inspiring, but the general concept has come from ourselves.

You’ve known each other for 25 years – how would you explain your musical relationship? How has it developed?

A: I think we base everything on mutual respect for each other’s ideas and capabilities. It turned out over the years that the best way to work is that Walter is in the studio ALL the time or with the music all the time. And I kinda keep the contact to the outside world. Walter comes up with musical ideas – complete songs and structures and then we discuss them. Then we take it from there.

It’s very good for us because sometimes I come in with a fresh ear and help out.

W: It sparks a connection because sometimes you can get lost in your computer.

You are often on tour - what personal items can’t you be without?

W: Generally it’s a good book. Nowadays we’re also heavily into yoga. Not only as a preparation for the tour, but for general health reasons.

Spiritually?

W: Well to keep calm. The breathing is very important. Before we used to play in smaller areas, where the smoke and air was very bad. You can imagine while playing drums it becomes like a sauna. And at times I felt like I was about to faint. Now the yoga breathing helped me big time and I know now I could play an hour without breathing at all and still play.

(Laughs)

It helps keep you fit and fit in your mind. To have this distance from everything that’s happening around us. We create the soundtrack to get people crazy. And that’s fine - it’s our job and we love that. But sometimes its good to have this slight distance.

A: I prefer to have my entertainment center with me. The computer of course, the production center and my dvd’s.

W: Which is a screen as big as this wall. (stretches hands apart) An extra flight case!

(Laughs)

A: Sometimes you need a little more entertainment in Macedonia than let's say Sydney. Depends on where you are. You may need some more entertainment that in other cities. Also, you can get sick on tour and it’s always great to have a little extra entertainment.

I know that you label partner Thomas Koch (DJ T.) recently said he loves the recent house revival. What are your feelings about that?

(Laughs)

W: I don’t know about the recent house revival.

A: You know Thomas lives in his own very special corner. He sees it more from a music professor way. He’s coming from Groove magazine, and it’s very important for him to be focused in various styles. For us we just combine everything that we think sounds good. For him, he can criticize our album even if he likes it, but he would never produce something like that. It’s not clean enough in the way of...

W: The purism of the style.

A: When he’s doing Detroit music, he has to have it in that sound architecture. In our case we are taking an element of Detroit. We don’t know anything about the revival of house. We just listen to the music we like.

Finally, if you could list one inspiration film, artist and album what would that be?

A: (To Walter) Do you have to think it over? I already know.

W: Sure go ahead.

A: Well Memento is the inspirational film, since it inspired our first album (Memento) and maybe even Booka Shade. I would say David Holmes, he’s an electronic musician who did the soundtrack for Oceans Eleven and he also did a panel at the Berlinale and talked about music in movies in general. He was very inspiring. I still have the ticket. This was a turning point in terms of the inspiration for Booka Shade to start again and gave a vision of how this could continue. As for an album I would say Violator from Depeche Mode but in the end I can’t say there is one particular album, specifically for this album.

Thanks guys and hope to see you soon.

W: Fantastic.

A: Thanks.

If you can't get enough of Booka Shade then listen to our exclusive radio session.