Booka Shade

Booka Shade - s.t.a.r.r.z.
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The studio partnership of producers, remixers and live act Booka Shade aka Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier has come a very long way since its incarnation in the early 90s. Back then, Arno and Walter were a synth pop act signed to a major label. They released two albums and did a number of tours, but at the same time they were being seduced by the emerging trance and techno sounds they heard in Frankfurt clubs like The Omen.

Subsequently, Arno and Walter changed their focus to club projects and released trance records on R&S, Tommy Boy and Sven Vath’s Harthouse imprint. However, it was on Dutch label that Booka Shade scored their biggest releases with the progressive ´Kind of good´ and ´Silk´.

By the end of the 90s, Booka Shade had tired of the trance-techno scene and again needed a new direction to focus on. At this stage, they decided to found their own label. By chance, they met with Thomas Koch, aka DJ T, one of Germany’s most experienced DJs. Arno and Walter’s old friends Patrick Bodmer and Philipp Jung, aka M.A.N.D.Y., whom they knew from the 90s in Frankfurt’s club scene, completed the new partnership.

By 2002, the Get Physical label was launched, with Booka Shade responsible for all of the productions and remixes by M.A.N.D.Y., DJ T., Sunsetpeople and Chelonis R. Jones. In just a few years, the label won supporters from a wide spectrum of DJs because its releases covered a broad brush stroke of electronic styles, including trance, electro and techno, within its club-friendly grooves.

In 2004, with Get Physical established as one of Europe’s most respected new electronic music labels, Booka Shade decided to step from the shadows and pursue their own solo career again.

Get Physical was home to Booka Shade’s widely acclaimed and admired 2005 debut album ‘Memento’, which saw Walter and Arno use the experience that they had gained working in the pop and trance spheres during the 90s to stunning effect. Slivers of pop melody and shiny trance euphoria are underpinned with twitchy, stripped bare beats. The end result was an ultra-modern, occasionally menacing and evocative but always rewarding work.

The label was also the outlet for their huge 2005 club hit, ‘Mandarine Girl’ and ‘Body Language’ - both firm favourites in their live show - with the latter track, a collaboration with M.A.N.D.Y, winning the DJ award ‘Ibiza Track of the Season 2005’ and gaining support from big league DJs as well as underground house and techno names.