Booka Shade: It’s all about German engineering
Kevin Bronson on
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By Rich Thomas
Because of all the sonic minutiae and rhythmic detail that goes into their programming, as well as the distinctly more expansive and song-based approach to their last full-length, it wouldn’t be wrong to quantify Booka Shade as headphone trippers. Their music lacks the meandering psychedelia of, say, the Chemical Brothers, and isn’t as blindly aggressive (thank God) as most of the en vogue strains coming out of Russian and France. But while Arno Kammermeier and Walter Merziger definitely know how to blow up a dance floor, their distinctive tech-house style is very deliberate – like getting lost in an amusement park rather than a forest – and their music explodes in a graceful, controlled fashion. This is, after all, German engineering we’re talking about.
Stationed in separate bastions on either side of the Fonda Theatre stage – with Kammermeier banging out percussive embellishments on an electronic kit and Merziger orchestrating sequences and manhandling cutoffs and effects – the pair blazed through a lively 90-minute set on Thursday night, bucking a continuous play, DJ-style format in favor of bite-sized, two- or three-song vignettes. Hits like “Mandarine Girl, “Night Falls,” “Body Language” and their new single, “Bad Love,” were pumped up and given ample breathing room to shine, while new tracks like “Teenage Spaceman” and “Regenerate” were well received by a modestly sized yet incredibly diverse and up-for-it crowd.
The payoff, however, came at the tail end of the encore. Not because they pulled out their biggest crowd pleasers – those came earlier – but because they were at their deepest and most unhinged, firing off dark rhythms and massive bass flourishes that made for the hardest and headiest moment of the evening. When I petitioned their publicist for a set list, the last tune was listed simply as “Rave,” which I’d be willing to bet isn’t the name of any specific track in their catalogue, but code for “Let’s just freestyle the hell out of this and melt some faces.”) Booka Shade are masters of rhythmic swing and subtle melodic shifts, but when they go off the grid, they’re unstoppable. If you’re checking them out at Lightning In A Bottle tonight, cross your fingers that they’re feeling frisky.
||| Live: Booka Shade performs tonight at the Lighting in a Bottle festival at Oak Canyon Ranch in Irvine.
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