Books Shade are about to release their next album called ‘More’ it’s certainly a welcomed return to form, not that they lost it in the first place.

The new album looks to their live shows for inspiration and it’s a return to what made them great; big bass, catchy melodies and clever percussion all for the dance-floor. It draws on many different influences throughout even including a quick foray into Martyn-style dubstep. We really like it and will review it nearer the UK release.

We have a fantastic spring mix from Booka Shade which was recorded in Berlin, and features a few tracks from the new album.

Booka Shade – Spring Session in Berlin, Apr 2010 from R.fm at Letsmix.com.

DJ T will present episode 51 of Fabric’s mix series, if you haven’t heard of him here’s a summary: Over the last 20 years Thomas Koch has launched Groove Magazine, co-founded Get Physical and also co-founded the now legendary Monza club night in Ibiza.

Released last week DJ T’s Fabric 51 occupies the melodic, minimally percussive ground between house and techno (geographically that would be Belgium, right?)

DJ T – Fabric 51 – 30 Minute Promo Mix from fabric at Letsmix.com.

Booka Shade have just announced that their much anticipted new album will be out in May and the first single called ‘Bad Love’ will be out on April 19th.

Arno and Walter will doing their first ever full UK tour which will see them promoting the album across many UK cities.

“The album is called More!. More refined production, more multi-layered atmospheres, more emotion.” Explains Arno Kammermeier. “We wanted this album to be more energetic with strong grooves and of course the typical Booka Shade melodies and atmospheres that we love. The album takes you through every stage of the night out; the excitement before you go out, the party, the late, late night, a bit of paranoia…. and then the sunny morning of a new day.”

“We’re so excited about 2010 and taking the new album on the road. We’ve been working on these songs in the studio for the last 18 months and now is the time to hear them loud!” Arno continues, “The world tour will start in February with us headlining the Future Music Festival in Australia, followed by club shows in key cities throughout Europe and a short trip to the U.S. to introduce the album Stateside. I can safely say we have a big summer of festivals in front of us too!”. Indeed they do, with the full live schedule to be announced very soon, including (for the first time ever) a fully live UK tour, taking in all the major cities across the country.

Free track here

1/ Havanna Sex Dwarf
2/ Donut (interpretation)
3/ Regenerate
4/ The Door
5/ Teenage Spaceman
6/ Divine (feat. Yello)
7/ Scaramanga
8/ L.A.tely
9/ Bad Love (feat. Chelonis R. Jones)
10/ No Difference
11/ This Is Not Time..

You can download an unreleased track from the album called ‘Regenerate’ we haven’t heard it yet because we’re still waiting for the email – if you have let us know.

If you can’t wait until May for your fix, then fear not, you can watch their set at Space’s 25th Anniversary here.

DanceTrippin 139: Booka Shade @ Space Ibiza from DanceTrippin.tv on Vimeo.\

Booka Shade – Regenerate

The Lightbox will host Musiq Concrete’s next party on the 13th of February and they have decided to call on zi German’s and book Get Physical’s Thomas Schumacher.

Alongside Schumy will be Leeds supremo Simon Baker who has had a great 2009 with his re-workings of Simian Mobile Disco’s ‘Sleep Deprivation’.

Room 2 will feature experimentalism via Caged Baby, Justin Robertson and David Bevan.

Musiq Concrete
Sat 13 Feb
Lightbox, London
10pm – 6am £10/£8 NUS

Thomas Schumacher was kind enough answer some questions about music, family life and his new album.

Download his latest promo mix here

Do you still get as excited about music as you did when you first got into the scene?

I certainly do. There is a lot of exceptional music available, much more than in the past. But – the downside are the masses of crap music that one has to dig through in times of digital overkill to find the nuggets. That’s frustrating at times. You need to apply all sorts of “filters” to make it work and fun.

What have you heard in the last year that made you want to jump up and dance your face off?

I heard a lot of exciting music in the last year. In fact, despite the flood of (and I quote here my dear colleague Ewan Pearson) “…dull-as-ditchwater-post-minimal-tokenethnicvocalsample-loop-boredom…” 2009 was a great year for club music. If you only looked left and right of the mainstream there was so much good and unique music being released. I think of people like Martyn, Levon Vincent, Motor City Drum Ensemble, Ben Klock, DJ T just to name a few…

And how is the scene different now to when you started?

It is very very different from when I started. For example (apart from a few exceptions) you don’t find this feeling of togetherness and solidarity amongst people in clubs anymore. Instead, it has become a very individual experience. Surely you will still find regulars and groups of friends partying together but that is very different from the way I experienced it in the early 90s. On the other hand, the whole industry has become so much more professional, and that is generally a good thing. I have spent enough time during the 90s in bunkers and other dark holes or old warehouses raving around. As much as it was fun at the time, now I prefer proper clubs like Berghain, Womb or Lightbox.

Do you think your sets and productions are different now? What has influenced those changes?

The changes in technology have been very influential. For example, I am in transition from spinning with CD’s to using a Macbook on stage (I will still mix with timecode cd’s)  and my recording studio has been complete digital for years now. 6 years ago my studio was full of keyboards, synth, drum machines, mixers etc and I was touring with 2 record crates carrying 200 records around the world. When do you ever hear a “live” mix on a dj mix cd anymore? To me, someone who does not beat-match during a set is not a DJ. Period. A performer maybe, but not a DJ. And in times of gazillions of tracks available good taste and the ability to read the crowd and interact have become even more important. And no computer can help you with that.

Having played all round the world, many times, what is it that keeps you motivated and wanting to do it?

There are many factors that keep me motivated. In some countries like Australia, I have been working with the same people for over 10 years now. It is no longer just business. Friendships have developed over the years and I even bring my family. Then you see your kids play together and the whole thing has such a bigger meaning. I love that. Another factor is the constant change in our scene. Clubs come and go, just like new generations of clubbers and that keeps it very exciting. Plus, the music is constantly changing and evolving. And I am a pretty curious person, that helps too.

How did the relationship with Get Physical start?

An anonymus demo cd was sent, the only contact info was a uk yahoo e-mail address. The plan was to make them listen to the music and be open minded, which would have been difficult if they had known that I was involved. So, shortly after DJ T. send an email to this yahoo account and expressed his excitement about the music I gave him a call. I still remember that he did not know what to say for a moment when we spoke on the phone. He did not expect me to be behind it at all. That’s how it started.

Are you going to release more with them this year?

Yes indeed. My new album will be released in May, followed by singles and remixes. It will be the busiest year of our relationship and I will tour all around the world to promote the album. I am pretty excited about this after 4 years of gearing up for it.

How do you balance family and touring?  What rules do you impose on DJing to make sure you fit everything in? Is your studio at home or … ?

To start with the last question. No, my studio is not at home. A studio at home and kids don’t go together. When our daughter is around, she wants to play with me and I want to spend time with her. But the studio is only 10 minutes from home. I walk there and back every day and if possible I try to work from 9-5 so I have the chance to be there for her and for my wife of course. In my experience, fitting it all in is simply a question of good communication and proper organisation. However, it is not always easy to say good bye and leave for a couple of weeks. But the internet has made it much less difficult. We Skype all the time when I am on tour. And as I said before, when it is possible, I will bring my family and we have a little holiday.

What are you most proud of in your career so far?

Amongst others things, I am proud to still be around, happy with myself and my music and to see new generations of people liking my music year after year and that they come to my gigs and have such a good time, especially now that I am often much older than the average clubber. And I am proud of the fact that I have ethics when it comes to treating my fans and promoters. I show people respect when they make an effort to come to see me or book me. Needless to say, I dislike “superstar” DJ divas enormously.

Have you got a pair of sunglasses? The Lightbox is known for being a bit of an onslaught on the senses!

Thanks for you concern but I will be alright, trust me

When Renaissance approached German tech-house masters M.A.N.D.Y to compile a compilation CD, quite a few eyebrows were raised.

“Renaissance obviously has very deep roots in the progressive house scene, but they wanted to do something a bit different and they flew to Berlin to meet us,” explains Philipp.

“That’s the thing with us – we’re always up for a challenge,” says Patrick. “We’ve been DJing for 14 years, and we’ve never been ones to stick to just our crowd. It’s much more challenging to play to an unknown dancefloor than at your own club night.”

Philipp continues, “It’s like when a football team goes and plays in Peru and it’s much harder because of the different temperature, humidity, and oxygen levels. You still have to play your game though, and represent yourself as best as you can.”

Total artist control helps, of course. Renaissance gave M.A.N.D.Y. the scope to do whatever they wanted with their double mix compilation.

“We did one CD aimed solely at home listening, but with M.A.N.D.Y. there has to be another, more club orientated side too,” says Philipp, of the second CD. “However, with the club mix, we made sure it could still be listened to at home and that’s part of the hard work that goes into all of our mix CDs.”

That includes 2006’s warmly received ‘At the controls’ double compilation for Resist, 2007’s Fabric offering, as well as this year’s ‘Get Physical 7th Anniversary’ compilation - all were meticulously arranged in the studio.

As Philipp explains, “We spend shit loads of time doing a mix compilation. When we put together a mix, our main aim is for it to have longevity.

“That means we have to re-edit every single track, and spend many weeks refining each mix, into to the perfect arrangement.

“This is no promo bullshit. If you listen to our Body language CD or our ‘At The Controls’ mix, you can listen to them over and over again, without it getting boring.

“We spend so long programming a mix, that it even becomes almost like pop music. We cut out the intros and beats heavy sections, cut down the transitions and mixes, and make the whole thing much more musically tight.”

Patrick says, “It’s a music driven mix album, which is produced down to the smallest of details. We spent four weeks every single day in the studio working on the mix for Renaissance.”

There’s an abundance of DJ mix podcasts available for free online today, so does that make M.A.N.D.Y.’s job any harder, when compiling a mix which must adhere to the legalities of licensing?

“A professional mix compilation is very different from a podcast,” says Patrick. “A standard DJ mix is usually done in real time, using the latest hot tracks. But for a compilation, you must select music that doesn’t age, and then put it together in a way that can be listened to at home, again and again.

“The difference between a mix compilation and a standard DJ podcast, is like the difference between a film and flicking through endless TV channels. One is a piece of art, the other is quick and easy entertainment.”

For every compilation M.A.N.D.Y. sweat blood. They become monsters who can’t sleep, obsessed for weeks with one single mix.

“We said for the Renaissance one, ‘OK we’ll really only work on this as a day job’, but then you can never really control what happens.

“Sometimes you’ll work on it so much that you end up hating it and thinking it’s awful, or you love it too much and don’t want to stop working on it. Some days, we spent 20 hours on it in one go, refining it, making it better.”

Licensing problems didn’t help the shred of sanity that M.A.N.D.Y. do have.

“We couldn’t clear some tracks for it inevitably, and when one of those tracks is a key track, that screws up the whole mix, so you have to start all over again – I think we have about six versions of the Renaissance mix,” says Patrick.

“We tried to get a Simon & Garfunkel track, and also a track by The Cure but we couldn’t clear either. Even for tracks that we thought would be relatively simple to license because we knew the label owner, like an Emperor Machine track on DC Recordings for example, we couldn’t clear it.

“Although on the flip side, Carl Craig licensed us one of his tracks after just one email, so it’s the luck of the moment really. But that’s part of the long process behind a compilation.”

Philipp jokes, “Well, there is no M.A.N.D.Y. album yet, so at least we put a lot of effort into our mix compilations.”

The studio technique for the mix compilation was intensive. First the boys tried out different mixes in Traktor, practicing different versions of every mix.

“We had to get a feeling for the flow, and then once we had that done, we perfected it in Ableton Live, by doing re-edits of everything, cutting down every track, to make it all fit onto a CD,” says Philipp.

The result is a two-sided coin with perfectly round edges. The first mix offers 17 tracks of blissful electronica that segues into warm moments from Sebastien Tellier and Holge Zilske.

The second mix, cuts through an impressive 27 tracks of body rocking tech house, four-to-the-floor electronic house gems, and the odd quirky surprise from DJ Koze and Gang Gang Dance, all wrapped up in just 80 minutes.

“We could have kept going, but that’s one of the challenges of doing a mix for CD,” says Patrick. “You have to tell your story within 80 minutes.”

We can only hope M.A.N.D.Y can find this level of obsession for the own material and get their long awaited debut album finished. Let hope New York inspires them to create something special.

Bronnt Industries Kapital is a project from Bristol, England based around the music of producer/multi-instrumentalist Guy Bartell.

In 2009 Bronnt Industries Kapital released its third album ‘Hard for Justice’ on Booka Shade’s Get Physical label.

‘Hard For Justice’  draws as much inspiration from myriad marginal movies as from the dance roots of Krautrock.

Describing the album as “an homage to the spirit of 80s Hollywood vigilante cinema, low-rent sci-fi and Italian fright flicks,” Bartell marries the deep builds characteristic of film scores with glitchy, 80s synth-pop references.

‘Hard for Justice’ begs for your undivided attention, so a casual listen this is not; however, for those who have a badass sound system and are searching for a melancholy soundtrack to accompany their daydreams, it might be just the right thing.

The experimentation displayed over the handful of tracks here ensures ‘Hard For Justice’ will keep giving over the coming months and proves that Get Physical are truly beginning to deliver artist albums proper, straying from just releasing discs from their known artists.

Booka Shade may have only come to your attention over the last 5 years, but their time in the music industry stretches all the way back to the early ’90s, when they started working together in a band named Planet Claire.

This mainly centered around synth pop, after releasing two albums (both of which featured some of deep house diva Lisa Shaw’s first vocal tracks) they disbanded in 1995. By this time, Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier had become increasingly interested in electronic music.

They soon began to make club tracks under various different guises, experimenting techno and house as they left their earlier synth pop sound behind.

After tinkering with both the underground and the mainstream (as Perky Park they even remixed a version of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl”), they had a chance meeting with Patrick Bodmer and Philipp Jung of M.A.N.D.Y. and Thomas Koch (AKA DJ T.) Soon after Get Physical was formed.

Get Physical has since gone on to rack-up over 150 releases and become a powerhouse in the German electronic music scene.

Merziger and Kammermeier’s production prowess proved to be one of the driving forces behind their initial popularity, with their work for both M.A.N.D.Y. and DJ T. garnering acclaim on top of their own productions as Booka Shade.

2005 was the year when the got their big break with smash-hits, with “Body Language” and “Mandarine Girl” becoming inescapable anthems worldwide and taking their sleek electro-house sound to a much wider audience.

Nowadays they’re headlining large club gigs and festivals with their energetic audio/visual live show, and while you generally won’t find them playing other people’s records when you go to see them, they’ve proved their DJing talents with their eclectic addition to the DJ-Kicks series.

This mix sees them in a relatively more straightforward mood, mixing up minimal, electro, tech and boompty house flavours with a couple of surprises along the way.

Interview from Resident Advisor

What have you been working on recently?

We just came home from a US tour, where we played big festivals such as SXSW and ULTRA as well as some club shows. And before that we finished two remixes: one for Moderat, the project of Modeselektor and Apparat, the other one for Bronnt Industries Kapital, a new act on Get Physical. Back in Berlin, we’re continuing production on our new album. It’s coming along great: I think we’ll have a single out after the summer with the album following at the beginning of 2010.

How and where was the mix recorded?

We started the mix while traveling on the tour bus in the States and finished it in Berlin.

Can you tell us a little about the mix?

Like all of our “recorded mixes,” it doesn’t represent a club set but is for home listening. The mix starts off with a brand new track by DJ T., taken from his soon to be released second album, The Inner Jukebox. We’re very happy with what we’ve heard from the album so far. It’s going to be a really cool club album. He produced it together with Thomas Schumacher.

You’ll hear a yet unreleased remix of “Donut,” by a young producer named Ben Hoo and our remix for Moderat. We wanted to include New Order’s dub mix of “Confusion” for a long time. And the very last song comes from David Gray. We have loved this song since it first came out: “Please forgive me if I act a little strange, for I know not what I do.” Love the words.

What gigs do you tend to prefer—the big festivals or the smaller club gigs?

We love them both, really. We would miss something if we could only do either one. The big stages are great, because you have a perfect production and sound, mostly good air (when it’s open air) and a lot of space to perform. In the intimate places you have the whole audience all around you…you can practically reach out and touch the people which is a good experience as well.

RA150_20090413_Booka-Shade-residentadvisor.net