

Keyboards aren’t as sexy in a live situation. WM: The thing you see most directly is Arno, because he is playing drums and the triggers. How do you pull off your live performances?
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But with like Pro Tools’ Fairchild emulation, I can get very close to that sound. We had in the past–Tube-Techs and Fairchilds–and I know how they sound. But really, I don’t hear that much of a difference between old compressors and the emulations. WM: We have an LA-4 from UREI that’s good for bass sounds–if you need them more flat, for example. Is there still a place for hardware compressors and effects in your setup? If it’s low in the mix, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it gives a certain texture that plug-ins don’t have. But since we do use plug-ins sometimes, we might run the sound through an amp or speakers and mic it to get the sound of the room. It depends on so many things, even the temperature of the room.

You hit one key and it sounds this way you hit it again and it sounds totally different. Walter Merziger: For one, analog synthesizers don’t always work in the same way. What’s the draw of stepping outside of purely computer-based production? One of the first things we did was a song called “Duke.” It’s darker, more cinematic, and it has this little hook–it sounds more like something from our first album, Memento. On The Sun and the Neon Light, we decided to find a different way. Similarly, on Movements, all the songs were riff-oriented, and we felt like that was done. People start working with a strict formula, the beats get too hard, and it stops being sexy. XLR8R: Does the term “electro-house” make any sense regarding what you do?Īrno Kammermeier: When a name for a style is found, you’re already lost. Here they talk about the benefits of dragging 600 lbs. It’s a sound that can be delicate, but never thin–a change at least partially due to the duo’s renewed interest in vintage hardware and acoustic instruments. Tracks like “Psychameleon” trade house’s pulse for a glittery swing, built from a malfunctioning Korg Poly-800 synth and a vocoded whisper. Booka Shade’s latest album, The Sun and the Neon Light, has the familiar weight of their breakout release, Movements, but with a more spacious, experimental edge. With their roots in synth-pop bands, producer Walter Merziger and drummer Arno Kammermeier have always erred on the side of stripped-back groove, long before minimal techno made it fashionable. In the case of Berlin’s Booka Shade, though, careful refinement has always been part of their 20-year-plus process. When artists rail on about subtlety and stepping away from the almighty riff, a red flag tends to go up.
