Booka Shade- Movements (release date May 12)

-- Michael Dieter (mdiete...), February 19th, 2006.

glad to see this moved from Booka Shade-Memento (album)

I imagine that a 12" or two of remixes will appear a month or two after the album release, which is a bit too far away for details to have emerged yet I suspect.

Out of curiosity, what commercials have they done?

http://www.perkypark.com/musicForCommercialsAndMedia/21/instruction

Yeah, I like too how all the little adjustments in the mix are really noticeable (in terms of which sounds are at the front and so on). In busy electro-house or intricate minimal you can sometimes be so overwhelmed with details that you can't hear that, but due to the relative simplicity and airiness of Booka Shade's grooves you can hear precisely how each component relates to one another, and when aspects of that change. It makes for very alert listening: the minute changes in "In White Room" especially sends prickles across my skin.

Ha ha they're totally like Lindsay Buckingham or something.

it's been on quite a few comps now but it first appeared on M.A.N.D.Y.'s Body Language mix a year ago.

xp to Jeff, the second track on the Madonna album sounds like it.

i don't know about that. are you judging it by the same standards by which you judged the album? i think that here we have to observe the distinction between art and design (as tenuous and shifting and fertile as the boundary may be) and consider the ads function and how the music exists functionally. i thought that it was great ad music, really got me in the mood to buy / drive a bmw or some jeans.

ADS'

(for those who haven't heard it yet, like me)

Give me, body
Give me
Body
Body
Give me your body

Don't talk, Baby don't talk
Body language

Give me your body
Just give me your body
Give me your body
Don't talk

Body language
Body language

You got red lips
Snakes in your eyes
Long legs, great thighs
You've got the cutest ass I've ever seen
Knock me down for a six anytime

Look at me - I gotta case of body language
Look at me - I gotta case of body language
Body language - body language - yeah

Sexy body, sexy, sexy body
I want your body
Baby you're hot

Body language

Of course the sensible thing would be to make a "Body Language"/"Slow" mashup.

They could loop the "read my BODY LANGUAGE" bit for ages!

plus added "give me love...give me love so that i can...kill" too!

I dunno, it's hard to see it being a novelty single like "Flat Beat' was (not saying "Flat Beat" wasn't also great as well), and without vocals.

i think it could work in much the same way that something like royksopp's 'eple' worked.

It sounds like it's off a Wighnomy Bros track? From Wuzzlebud KK? But I doubt it. I really can't recall hearing this track on a mix recently.

I'm not sold on this as an "album" at all this far. Some great tracks yeah, but in succession? Overlong, draggy, samey, borderline boring. And that's acknowledging that it's frequently beautiful, surprising sounding, produced & mixed to utter perfection. Perhaps too perfect & too refined.

I totally get the "Frequencies" nod in the sound... but I want a "We Are Back" or just a little something jacking along the way. Or maybe I just need to hear this out.

Now this is awesome:

1. Night Falls
2. Body Language [Interpretation]
3. Paper Moon
4. Birds And The Beats / At The Window
5. Darko
6. Pong Pang
7. Mandarine Girl [Album Version]
8. Take A Ride
9. Wasting Time
10. In White Rooms
11. Hallelujah USA
12. Lost High

Shaving off most of the filler might have just catapulted it into Album Of The Year status for me.

Just to clarify (way back up thread), I don't understand what you mean by 'soul' and I'm not just being difficult. If you care to define it, maybe I'll say whether or not it's necessary for Booka Shade. As it stands, all these terms like character, richness, soul are shallow foundations - even if you apply emotionality or whatever. That's why I feel it's not any kind of necessary requirement for Movements, etc.

Moreover, to align with Tim, Booka Shade doesn't seem interested in any of those categories in the first place. It's the surfaces that count. This seems like a perfectly valid line for producing minimal as pop for me.

I'm being unfair to some extent b/c I'm placing all the critical burden on lf, fandango, trees and susan to explain themselves when they've politely never once asked me to explain myself.

Why Booka Shade should be considered in these terms is beyond me though.

this reminds me of the house versus techno thread. and fwiw, i think techno is healing but yeah i get how house feels close to the bottom line there too. i'm just not sure if it is..

Different forms of art can be considering in those terms, sure. But ultimately, I think these things are both social and material, not individual per se.

I agree with this. Admitting that "soul" is this heavily mediated concept fashioned by mode of expression and capacity for recognition gets to the nub of the issue for me actually: at this level, the concept becomes so abstract and nebulous that it can only be used at an individual level, not because the experience of soul is individual, but b/c we aren't speaking with enough precision to allow for inter-subjective understanding of the idea we're trying to get across.

The album's OK, actually.

'paper moon' is boring! boring boring nothingy nothingy boring! i don't know whether the boring one near the end is 'wasting time' or 'take a ride' actually - i find myself skipping both because i get imaptient for 'in white rooms'.

Finally, while squeaky cleanness [as] the vehicle of emotion makes sense, this is why all of the heartstring-tugging of the album seems so false to me.

I think that 'false' is not really what I meant there. I
guess 'sterile' (in its most hollow, dead sense) is more what I was
thinking-- perhaps I should not post early in the morning, before my
language has really come to me.

In other words, I understand that such notions of truth and falsity
suggested by that post are incredibly problematic. I am uncomfortable
with the fact that my post suggested them, but do think that much of
my problem with the usage (in hindsight) is that notions of what is
true and false are as flimsy and shifting as any of our perceptions,
thoughts, feelings.

You are right when you say that the clean nature of Movements is not
the only thing that makes its emotionalism seem hollow (to use the new
word) to me. I think that some of it might be the context in which I
listened to the album the first few times coloring my perceptions now,
and I think that some of it might just be my aversion to what I hear
as effortlessness, as in it all sounds very easy-- in my mind, Booka
Shade are to new good dance music as John Williams is to good new
classical music. It's not that John Williams or Booka Shade are bad--
in fact, they're good at what they do-- but rather that I can't find
anything ultimately satisfying, emotionally or sonically, in either of
their sounds. The satisfaction lasts a flicker of a moment, then it
is gone-- I don't find this true with 95% of the dance music (both new
and old) that I listen to on a regular basis.

Finally, while I don't necessarily believe this entirely, I think that Tim has the right idea when he says: the concept [of soul] becomes so abstract and nebulous that it can only be used at an individual level, not because the experience of soul is individual, but b/c we aren't speaking with enough precision to allow for inter-subjective understanding of the idea we're trying to get across.

Will post again later, during work, after a half=hour in the sauna. (I'm working at a gym right now).

I think Tim is getting frustrated because people seem unable to explain their distaste for the album in anything other than vague terms that amount ultimately to 'i'm not feeling it.' Look how many times people use 'IMO' and 'personal' and '...to me' in this thread.

I mean I can understand some criticisms of the album. Its just that many of them here seem vague.

But...not in hopes of getting Tim and others to stop the lines of questioning, but merely to ask: isn't saying, "i just don't like it" a valid line now and again? i want to keep on discussing, but am curious.

on another point, after reading through old posts, i see that fandango quite adequately expressed my formal problems with the album:
Still, there's something that feels not quite right here... the textures seem pulled from the most interesting ends of minimalish techno/house, but instead of being totally integral to the rhythms, they're just sort of lying there on a quite limp & softly-soft 4/4 base. The production kind of hides this at first, but it doesn't last. It all ends up a bit bland and uninvolving.

I donno I don't do much writing on dance but thats what appeals to me about it. lf it just seems like comparisons to villalobos or whatever do your argument more harm than good just because its like criticizing Shellac for not trying to sound like AC/DC (or vice versa, i don't think thats a good parallel in any way except that they're both going for something very different in their respective genres).

huh?

It doesn't mean it's less mixable, just that there are bits that make it clear this is an album and not a collection of singles.

Note, deej, that lf has said this upthread: i don't see much of a villalobos comparison.

In other words, it seems like most people don't think that a comparison works.

i think that your observation of "the way it consumes big-room house and wraps it tightly enough that it can fit in, er, small rooms," is really interesting, but i guess that that sort of thing just doesn't really appeal to me.

okay. i started listening to this again, and now find that i actually...really...like it? but more in the same way that i really like that "Two Dots" track by Lusine-- not my usual thing, but it certainly shimmers at certain points.

lol

ja right, esp. given some of what i said two years ago.

i used to like this cd but now these dudes put me to sleep

i think in the end, it comes down to 'in white rooms' and 'night falls,' maybe 'paper moon.' otherwise, i kind of agree with you, omar.

been kinda watching the table/booka shade romance for a while, its like a romantic comedy "you're insufferable!" "Kiss me!" set up

lol, it is. i think that now that my ears have grown up a bit, i am a bit less frothy in my judgments of certain producers and musics.

night falls is dope

Tech house isn't generally my thing, but I've recently been turned on to this album and it is great. I listened to Night Falls four times in a row the other day. What else sounds like this?

Obvious response, but you could do a lot worse than just picking up the first two Get Physical compilations which are still incredible. I suppose this album is a bit more expansive and florid than most of that though.

I think the following are all in somewhat similar territory (in different ways) and all are excellent:

V/A: M.A.N.D.Y. - Get Physical 2nd Anniversary
V/A: M.A.N.D.Y. - Body Language Volume 1
V/A: DJ T - Body Language Volume 2
V/A: Damian Lazarus - Rebel Futurism Volume 2
Ada - Blondie
V/A: Jeff Samuel - Poker Flat Volume 4
V/A: Superpitcher - Today
Ellen Allien & Apparat - Orchestra of Bubbles

Cool, that's a lot to be getting on with. Cheers fellas.

I think the Get Physical 4th anniversary mix is possibly even closer to the mark here.

I'd probably recommend Dominik Eulberg's Flora & Fauna as well, similar 'dance music for wandering around gardens in the early evening' vibe.

V/A: M.A.N.D.Y. - Get Physical 2nd Anniversary

this is still **the one** for me w/ this stuff

seconding all of tim's recs, and i'd add

v/a - kiki - boogybytes vol. 1 <= one of my favourite mix CDs ever
chelonis r. jones - disconnected genius
v/a - damian lazarus - crosstown rebels vol. 1

everyone should listen to dislocated genius