Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeir perform as Booka Shade and run seminal Berlin label Get Physical with long-time collaborators M.A.N.D.Y. and DJ T. This month they're playing in London for the first time since 2006 and, after dropping into the DJ Kicks series, are on the verge of releasing their third studio album, The Sun and the Neon Light. Unlike their previous dancefloor-orientated efforts, Memento and Movements, it features acoustic instruments, an orchestra and even vocals.

Dazed Digital: Where did the inspiration for the new album come from?
Arno Kammermeier: It's about the contrast between the day time and the night time. Both Walter and I have strong day lives, we have the label and we both have families and children. The neon light is the attraction of the night and the tension of that attraction. Like lots of people we love to go out, but then so often you get home and you're trashed and you wonder why you're doing it. There's something inside you that needs a bit of self destruction now and then. So the sun and the neon light are the opposite sides within us.

DD: What's different about the sound?
AK: On the first two albums we went as far as we could with digital production. This time we were looking for more depth in the sound, that's why we recorded with an orchestra – there are two songs that feature strings. There are more acoustic elements, bass guitars, live percussion. We like the contrast between the acoustic and the electronic.

DD: And since your DJ Kicks you've been adding vocals too?
AK: 'Numbers' on the DJ Kicks got a lot of good feedback. It was getting played on campus radio and daytime radio, places we wouldn't normally get heard. But it's not totally new for us. The first band we had, Planet Claire, was a synth-pop duo and always used vocals.

DD: You're used to big clubs. Why are your first few dates in smaller venues?
AK: We wanted to present the album in a few cities, Rome London, Paris and we haven't played in some of those places for a couple of years. We wanted to have smaller venues at first and then play the festivals like Glastonbury. Around October we're going to come back and do bigger tours in Britain and other places.

DD: You're not DJs, so how did you approach making the DJ Kicks album?
AK: We picked fifty of our favourite songs that we always wanted to combine, and we sat around backstage or in a hotel while we were on the Movements tour and fiddled around with them. It's a producer's mix. It would be technically difficult to do as a DJ. Many of the songs are pitched so drastically that you couldn't do it with turntables. We added a lot of bits and pieces.

DD: You've worked with soundtracks in the past. Any plans to rekindle that?
AK: When we did Memento, we worked late at night and we'd put a film on with the sound off. We'd have that running as we wrote. In July we're going to do a show in London where we play music to Inferno, a silent movie from early twentieth century. It's never been shown in public before, and it was dug up from the BBC archives. We definitely want to do more music with moving pictures over the next year.

Booka Shade tour Europe from Friday.