Photo by Denise Van Deesen
Audio By Carbonatix
It shouldn’t come as a surprise where Arno Kammermeier, one half of the Grammy-nominated live electronic duo Booka Shade, was when New Times called him. “I’m in the studio preparing for a show,” he cheerfully replied from the south of France.
There is always a need to practice when it comes to music making — not even Kammermeier and his partner, Walter Merziger’s forty-year-long career, can eclipse the need to keep testing the limits. And it’s this awareness in Booka Shade’s craft, combined with decades of groove-ridden music, that has kept the duo so fresh. It’s also the reason why seeing the two perform at North River’s ZeyZey on October 17 is a must.
“It’s good to return to Miami,” says Kammermeier. “At the moment, we’re playing a lot of songs from our recent album, For Real. What we always do is a mix of the new stuff and the classics.” Kammermeier adds that the two have recently reactivated dormant tracks in their shows. “We played ‘Darko’ for the first time in years. We’ve brought back some of the old times after hearing a lot of requests. We’re excited to hear the feedback from the crowd.”
Kammermeier and Merziger met in school as teenagers in Frankfurt, Germany. Both were music lovers, particularly of synth-pop bands. Naturally, they formed a two-member band called Planet Claire. As New Times wrote back in 2009, Planet Claire “delivered a sound that was steeped in the dance-rock crossover of Depeche Mode and company.”
By the 1990s, they adopted their Booka Shade moniker. Their first album, Momento, was released in 2004, marking their debut on their then-new label, Get Physical. The album was a sprawling, dub-laden, acidic, house blend that showed the world just how effortlessly Booka Shade could transcend genres.
Later tracks, “In White Rooms,” “Body Language,” and their “O Superman” remix, became dance floor hallmarks with the duo’s eclectic synth work and clubby drum patterns. They landed in Miami for the first time in 2006 for the Winter Music Conference, where they performed a live show with the band Hot Chip at the late Miami Beach spot, Pawn Shop.
But these are instrument-carrying electronic artists, not DJs with ample space in the booth for VIPs and bottle service, which allowed them to play at Ultra Music Festival, Coachella, and the Montreux Jazz Festival. “We’re a live act; we play in the surroundings of DJs, and, of course, we have backing tracks running from Ableton, but it’s a live show and there is all this energy.”
Merziger operates the keyboards, synthesizers, and a vocoder, while Kammermeier plays on the electronic drums. Improvisation is encouraged, but the listener will know that they are playing almost exclusively Booka Shade tracks. “We have to rely on our songs and play them with some pride as a producer and songwriter. It’s us.”
For example, “In White Rooms” has been on the setlist since the beginning. “We didn’t think it was a good song to play live. I don’t know what we thought back then.” It becomes a balancing act when you have twelve largely instrumental albums and keep pushing new music. “We never want to be a retro act that relies on tracks from twenty years ago. We’re always keen on developing the Booka Shade sound and, let’s say, the color and textures where people will say ‘that sounds like Booka Shade.’”
The crowd should expect songs from the latest album, For Real, released last March, on their other label, Blaufield Music. “With this project, we had a lot of ideas and scribbles — some being ten years old — that, for one reason or another, never worked in combination with other songs in previous albums.” For Real took the time to sort through the decade-old abstracts and “take the essence” of those songs from a 2025 perspective. “Sometimes albums happen in one go, but with this one in particular, it was special.”
The eleven tracker undoubtedly picks up on new trends with its strong melodic house sound. Yet there are still the Booka Shade qualities, something more modular and fermented, that puts the music past tranquil pianos or praising-the-sun chants. The track “Glare” is deep, with an early ’00s downtempo quality evident in the delayed vocals and sluggish drum patterns. “We’re happy to have songs that are a bit more home listening and more atmospheric. That’s what we wanted to achieve for the For Real album as well.”
There were ups and downs in Booka Shade over the years, as expected with any duo playing long enough. Still, Kammermeier and Merziger feel nothing but affection and gratitude for each other. At the end of the day, it’s two teenagers from Frankfurt who managed to make a footprint four decades ago. “Who would have thought forty years later, not only do we still work together, but we create music that we love.”
Booka Shade.With Harvery Sutherland. 8 p.m. Friday, October 17, at ZeyZey Miami, 353 NE 61st St., Miami; zeyzeymiami.com. Tickets cost $14.53 via shotgun.live.
