Booka Shade are Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier. Founding fathers of the legendary Get Physical Music, the duo have been responsible for some of the most anthemic electronic music of the last decade. After three critically acclaimed albums, 2010 sees the release of their fourth: 'More!' The follow up to 2008’s 'The Sun & the Neon Light' promises a more dancefloor centric approach to their melodic brand of tech-house. Premiering their new video, Dazed Digital caught up with them ahead of the album release and their Koko show in May.

Dazed Digital: You return to the UK for your first live show in London since 2008 in May. What’s kept you away for so long?
Walter Merziger: With two very intense tours behind us we said ok, we need to calm down a little bit and concentrate on the music. We also started to do some DJing for the first time, which was a lot of fun. But mainly we’ve been working overtime on the album for the last 16 months.

DD: How has the Booka Shade sound evolved with the new album? Did you have a particular concept in mind when approaching this record?
WM: The last album was quite cinematic and atmospheric, and we ended up in a situation where we didn’t have many songs we could play live. So we decided; let’s do an album we really can play live, something like a live show in the album format. That was the plan, but we soon realised that for an album you need some songs you can’t play live, another side to the band. So we moved away from this concept slightly, but when you strip away the typical melodies and harmonies of Booka Shade you have strong dance beats. We wanted to go back to more groovy music, a more clubby style.  

DD: You have mentioned the Pet Shop Boys as a source of inspiration, and have a background in producing synth-pop. Are these things still a big influence on the music you create?
WM: We are kids of the 80s, and I think this will stay with us forever. These were the things we were listening to when we were growing up, and had our first contact with nightlife. So of course when you listen to our music you can hear these references in the chords and melodies. At the moment we live in our own universe, bringing things from different genres together into something which is very unique to us.

DD: Strong melodies seem to be a theme in your music. Do you view melody as an important part of dance floor music?
WM: For me it is. We are composers and musicians and we want people to actually remember the music. The problem with dance music is that it’s music for the moment but longevity is non-existent. At the moment there is just this beats and bass tech-house formula. In the end if you are unique and you have a style people will remember what you are doing. I think we managed this well with Movements; very harmonic songs, anthems in the end, that people can sing along to.

DD: You did a special soundtrack for a silent film (Bertonlini and Padovan's Inferno) a few years ago. Do you intend to pursue similar projects in the future?
AK: Now that the albums finished we could do. I remember it was good fun, but the last 16 months have been very much album album album.
WM: We’ve had some offers to do some film work, but nothing has come together yet. Booka Shade is so time intensive but we will see after the album and tour, we are definitely interested in doing something different.

DD: What can fans expect from this new version for the live show.
WM: We try and do as much a we can with our hands, to play instruments and keep in contact with the people, and also have this synchronized light show. Each time we try and make it better, doing special versions of the tracks. I don’t know how many versions of Body Language or Mandarine Girl we have produced, I think around 10 or 11. We’re always trying to make it a little more interesting for us and the audience.
AK: Also we’re able now bring a lot more equipment than we used to, which brings a better show to the audience. For example we have this fantastic new Moog Voyager synthesizer, which is rather heavy, but just sounds amazing. This is what we like about the live show now, we can make it bigger.

DD: I’ve heard a rumour that one of you won and award for the fastest producer of 2003. Is this true?
WM: Haha, at that time we were producing music for German TV, for the series Star Search. We completely did the music for this TV show in a period of five months or so, hundreds of songs. We produced like hell, like machinery.
AK: Those were the days. Now it takes us 16 months to do one album!
WM: We did the job, but we are much more happy now. We can do what we want, live in our own universe.

DD: What are Booka Shade's plans for 2010?
WM: Touring. We said no more than a hundred shows a year, but I think we’re over it already.
AK: We are doing our European club tour at the moment, then a German tour, and then the festivals in the summer. We’re very happy to be playing Sonar again, it was one of the major kick offs of our career in 2005. We played during the day, in a small church. I remember there was this one little window behind us, and as we were playing and people started to stand up and get into the groove, this sun ray came through the window like the hand of God [laughter]. And now five years later we’re coming back and headlining the main stage at Sonar by night.

Booka Shade will be playing Camden's Koko on 13th May, tickets available here.

Text by Tom Ensom