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After the widely successful Movements, Germany's Booka Shade tackles the difficult task of returning with another crowd favorite. And while its predecessor was not shy in offering up the 'essential' dance floor hits (think "Mandarine Girl" and "Body Language"), The Sun & Neon Light is practically playing towards another crowd all together, or is it really? If rhetorical questions don't get your blood pumping, put on Booka Shade's latest and you'll be there in no time.
For the longest time, dance records are judged on the amount of club favorites they can offer up. An album with a single, mind-blowing track and the rest filler is still inevitable to sell a boatload of albums and be proclaimed "genius" by a large portion of the market. The live show is doubly important; those who can't bang out the same addicting grooves with increased intensity to a subset of their legion of fans won't remain in the limelight very long. Those who can make standing behind a laptop look super cool will ride a wave of success all the way to the bank. The more chart topping singles a musician can produce, the bigger his legacy becomes, irregardless of the frequency with which new material comes out (look at Daft Punk, for crying out loud). This generally adheres to the status quo -- that electronic music is electronic music, and we take it at face value. And, no doubt the vast majority of club-goers certainly wouldn't think twice about such a generalization of their night life listening habits.
Recent events have shaken up this paradigm, to the point where electronic musicians will soon be able to make music and skip the whole club scene all together without alienating their fan base. The resurgence of minimal techno in the past few years has refocused many musicians' attention back to the album as a whole and away from individual tracks. This is a quite appropriate shift for minimal techno itself, as the microsound approach doesn't present too many opportunities to bowl over a listener in a three minute time frame, so the album is then restructured to deliver the death blow over the course of an album (see Whistleblower, for example). Although electronic music initially began as an experimental-as-fuck movement, the warping and fracturing of the genre of the late 80s and 90s has only recently began to get peeled away and many are returning to more traditional roles in the community. The result? Albums that fit right into the collection at home.
The Sun & The Neon Light still lies safely on the commercial/club side of the spectrum, but there's no denying that it is works best when taken as a whole album and not in single tracks. I'd expect this will turn many of their traditional fans away from the album, as "Charlotte" is perhaps the only track that really gets keeps pace with some of their older material; which is not to say this isn't a dance album, as it certainly is, but it's not one that produces the smash hits of tomorrow. Instead, Booka Shade creates a melange of tracks that continually evolve and change, always keeping the listener actively engaged, if not dancing all together. It's more of a dance album for the mind than the body, as oddly as that might initially sound. And, even though the duo has safely departed from their earlier experiments in minimal techno, it would seem as if their dedication to the album itself on The Sun & Neon Light is influenced by their more persistent peers. There's much enjoyment to be taken from this album simply on its own terms, and I think that is one of Booka Shade's main accomplishments with the record. Effectively they keep a pretty similar sound to their previous projects but change their approach to their craft and in doing so yield completely different results.
The duality of the album not only arises in the thematics of the record, but also in the music itself. Roughly half the tracks could be pinned down as club tracks, and the other as general listening. The popular opinion is that this splits the album into "day" and "night," signifying a change in energy and stylistic behavior. However, all is kept very coherent between these pieces, and there's no noticeable disjointedness in the album. Several tracks crossover between the two, which adds to the fluidity of the work, and I'd even go as far to say that the flow of the album is so smooth that it's very possible to not even pick up on the dualistic nature on the first few listens. Booka Shade carefully selects the tracks, pulling across generations and genres to create a unique and satisfying hours worth of music. Many tip-toe the line between their two vantage points, such as "Outskirts," which simultaneously flirts with lush soundscapes, as well as some nice electro beats.
It's probably not entirely fair to view The Sun & The Neon Light as a dance album, but also not fair to totally disregard it as well. Booka Shade largely has its sights set outside the club scene for this album, yet they're still holding onto many of the sounds and techniques that got them there in the first place. The resulting production is an album that could have gone horribly awry, but instead works with an aloof charm that is generally downright irresistible. The moods and energies on the album act as a narrative force, immediately providing a portal between the audience and the musician, as well as mirroring the daily routine -- through the mundaneness of trivial activities to the highs and lows of the vibrant night life. This is the mark of a great album, one that connects with the listener on a deeper level, and stays implanted in the memory long after the last song has played.
Those listeners who are willing to dig in deeper to their general stock of music should find many desirable traits from The Sun and The Neon Light, while even those who won't can be pulled into it for the few sweet spots that it does hit. If nothing else, this catapults Booka Shade to a new plane, one where they're looking to make a larger mark on the world than "just another electronic duo." If the tunes keep coming up like this, we're in for a good ride.
-Jordan Volz