Booka Shade – Movements (Get Physical/Stomp)

During the last few years, German electro-house duo Booka Shade have certainly built upon their burgeoning reputation on several different fronts at once – co-running uber hip label Get Physical, remixing the likes of The Juan McLean and touring Ibiza alongside Mylo and Royksopp. This second artist album from Booka Shade “Movements’ follows on the heels of their acclaimed 2004 debut “Memento’ and shows the duo pushing their icy, electro-laced productions into some quite diverse areas ranging from near-IDM listening right through to more dancefloor-fixated explorations. If streamlined moments such as “Shimmer’ and “Darko’ suggest perhaps a more pared-back, austere but still bassgroove-fixated Tiefschwarz, robotic voices flitting over retro breakers’ rhythms, deeper offerings such as the juddering “Pong Pang’ call to mind more the sorts of minimalist future Detroit territory stalked by Matthew Dear under his recent Audion persona. With some densely metallic Villalobos-esque polyrhythms wandering their way beneath cold sounding analogue synth blips and moody bass swells, it’s certainly metal machine music indeed, though perhaps not as either Die Krupps or dear old Lou Reed intended it. Excellent stuff from a duo to seriously watch in 2006.