Booka Shade Movements Review

The second album from founders of the German Get Physical label, is both lighter and more expansive than their groundbreaking debut, Memento.

Movements aims to bring together the expert tinkering that underlies their production style with grooves that only the most dedicated dancefloor aficionados are capable of cooking up.

Anchored by a reworked version of their 2005 smash "Mandarine Girl", the album erases the genre boundaries between electro, house, techno, glitch, disco and experimental pop as it traverses the highbrow and low-end regions that exist between the Metro Area-ish opener "Night Falls" to "Lost High", the highly cinematic finale.

Mementos darkness has been replaced with a more buoyant mood, as though the producers threw open the windows in their basement, allowing chinks of morning light to penetrate their mercurial basslines and shimmering structures. Nowhere is this more evident than on the massive "Body Language".

Movements is an apt title for an album that is not only refreshingly restless, but manages to steer electronic music away from the mundane whilst retaining connections to its most basic and essential elements.

Reviwer: Paul Sullivan