Interview: Listening to Music with Booka Shade

There is no need to introduce Booka Shade. The Berlin-based duo is one of the world’s most successful acts in electronic music. Most of the time, Arno Kammermeier and Walter Merziger are touring almost non-stop: in Germany and Europe, in South and North America, in Australia and Asia. Nevertheless they have found time to produce their fifth album Eve which was published just recently. It contains 12 songs and features collaborations with Fritz Helder (Azari & III), Groove Armada’s Andy Cato and Fritz Kalkbrenner.

In our interview with Booka Shade we talked about music by Yello, New Order, The Cure and dOP. More after the jump.

Yello Desire

Walter: Yello are one of the most important influences im my musical life, especially their albums between 1982 and 1984. The combination of acoustic and electronic elements and the complexity of their sound fascinates us.

To us it was a great pleasure to write the song Divine together with Dieter Meier and Boris Blank for our 2010 album More! We met the guys in their studio, which is above lake Zurich. Between the recordings of the vocals Dieter told as some funny anecdotes and Boris explained the synthesizer to us.

New Order Your Silent Face

Arno: The first song on the B-side of the LP Power, Corruption & Lies. How do I know that without looking it up? I loved this album, it was given to me by a local record dealer in 1983, when I was an adolescent in his puberty, trying to get away from the narrowness of the small city he was living in.

Back then it wasn’t that easy to find out the name of that album, because New Ordner prefered not to print it on the cover. They also didn’t do that on Blue monday, which as far as I know is still the best sold 12’’ of all time. I am the proud owner of the original edition.

Just recently we met Bernard Summer, the front man of New Order, on a flight from Berlin to Zurich. They had a show the evening before, and obviously he looked weakened by the after show party. Nevertheless he bravely received our appreciation, and we were even able to take our picture with him.

The Cure Friday Im In Love

Arno: Well, you certainley seem to like the 80s heroes! We didn’t meet Mr. Smith in person yet, but if I would, I would tell him how scared I was when I listened to Subway song (from their first album) at night in bed.

Friday I’m in love is from another, happier creative period. We also like the combination of dark, melancholic and happy melodies in our songwriting as well. The light at the end of the tunel, positive melancholy.

Keith Jarrett The Köln Concert (Part 2 C)

Arno: Thinking of Keith Jarrett, the famous Jazz pianist and master of improvisation, I remember that I actually attended one of his concerts in the 1980s, when I was visiting friends of my parents in Nice.

They dragged me to this concert, but I wasn’t really paying attention, I would rather have been looking for French girls. Now I can boast about that (having been to the concert, not the French girls).

doP No more daddy Ame remix

Walter: Three really crazy French men! Most of the time I see them lying behind the stage (or even on the stage!) being half unconscious. They really like to party at their shows. And they are a great House live act.

We know the guys because they published music on Get Physical, the label we co-founded in 2002. We have great respect for me. I can still remember the night when I heard their epochal song Rej in a club for the first time (our Get Physical friends Philipp and Patrick from M.A.N.D.Y. were playing it).

Booka Shade Love Inc

Walter: That is a great conclusion, respect for your great taste! What can I say – the new (fifth) album was the most difficult one of our career. When we finished an album after two years of work, we did not like it, and we realized that we had to change the way we work; if not, that would be the end of the band.

Then I found a recording studio in Manchester which is called Eve Studios. We went there, we recorded just instruments and sounds, and later on, we edited that in our studio in Berlin, which took more than a year. This change of climate changed everything, and we were so inspired that we called our album EVE.

* * *

And here for you the latest track from Booka Shade: Wildest Thing.

Diesen Artikel auf deutsch lesen.

<a href="https://www.iheartberlin.de/author/jens/" target="_self">Jens</a>

Jens

Author