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May 10, 2010 Web Exclusive By Nick Hyman

German electronic mainstays Booka Shade (Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier) return with their latest dance floor-ready album. More! is a sophisticated house record delivering danceable tunes that work on a packed dance floor as well as on your iPod. This means that you'll also be hearing such out-there tracks as funky opener "Havanna Sex Dwarf" that have just the right amount of weird to keep things interesting. First single "Bad Love" is a low-key trance-cinematic stroll that glides by with lush vocals from Chelonis R. Jones, who also provided vocals for Röyksopp's excellent "49 Percent." Beefed-up clubbier mixes from Cassisus and Groove Armada are already on deck.

Booka Shade's previous remixing of Moderat's criminally underrated "Rusty Nails" has rubbed off on this album in a good way, as the overall feel of More! is that of a more lighthearted version of Apparat and Modeselektor's self-titled Moderat album. It's probably a good thing that both groups are friends, as "L.A.tely" sounds so much like Moderat's "A New Error" that any other group might claim infringement. The biggest disappointment is "Divine," a collaboration with Yello (yes, the Swiss Yello whose "Oh Yeah" was featured in Ferris Bueler's Day Off) that takes too long to get going with a grating spoken-word intro and then doesn't really take off. The past couple of Booka Shade albums have been slightly over-serious, but More! has a pleasant spring in its step. (www.bookashade.com)

Author rating: 7/10