German veterans overcome differences to record in Manchester
German house duo Booka Shade return with their fifth studio album, Eve, on November 1st. Named for the Manchester studio where members Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier crafted the songs that nearly marked their demise, the album marks a new beginning for the pair, who have remixed tracks by artists ranging from Depeche Mode to Kings of Leon. Despite their rocky road, they hung together and sparked a new lease on life in the process.
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“We wanted to tell a new story, a story which represented a new start,” Kammermeier told Rolling Stone. “In order to create something exciting we needed to be somewhere exciting, so in search of inspiration we headed to the U.K. home of electronic music – Manchester – to record at a residential vintage recording studio. We recorded an electronic album in a traditional way, and it made us feel like a band again. It was like going back to the beginning.”
With Eve, Booka Shade has rendered 12 imaginatively structured electronic numbers. Led by its latest single, “Love Inc,” which pays tribute to one-time Chicago house giant Lil Louis with a sample of his 1992 hit “Club Lonely,” the disc balances the atmospheric, jazzy pulse of “Many Rivers” with the artful “Kalimera.” On the latter, a lilting piano meets the sound of a rumbling subway train. Still, it’s the brilliantly built “Crossing Borders,” which features the vocal assistance of deep house fixture Fritz Kalkbrenner and the trombone work of Groove Armada’s Andy Cato, that begs to be heard, either on the dance floor or in a car commercial.
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