In White Rooms — Booka Shade
Named after an all-white hotel and almost left off the album, In White Rooms became one of Booka Shade’s biggest tracks after Movements came out in 2006.
- Track by German duo Booka Shade: Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier.
- Track 10 on Movements, released by Get Physical Music on 16 May 2006, and a single the same year.
- The duo nearly left it off the album; it became one of their biggest tracks.
Booka Shade did not much like “In White Rooms” at first. The duo hesitated to put it on their second album, Movements, until their manager told them they were crazy to leave it off. Released in 2006, it became one of their best-known tracks.
Booka Shade and Get Physical
Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier are veterans of the Frankfurt electronic scene; in the mid-1990s they went to the club Omen to hear Sven Väth DJ. In 2002 they co-founded Get Physical Music with DJ T and M.A.N.D.Y. (Patrick Bodmer and Philipp Jung), and produced many of the label’s early releases. Their debut album, Memento, came out in 2004. In 2005 they released “Mandarine Girl” and “Body Language”, credited to M.A.N.D.Y. vs. Booka Shade.
A track named after a hotel
The title has no hidden meaning. During a stay at a hotel somewhere in Europe, the pair noticed that “everything was white”: rooms, bars, lobby. Musically, the track rests on a classic bass line and a synth riff, a combination that became central to their shows and their style at the time.
Still, they were unsure. “We didn’t like it so much and hesitated to put it on the album,” they told Clash in 2016. Their manager insisted, and it stayed.
Movements and the single
Get Physical released Movements on 16 May 2006. “In White Rooms” is track 10, at 5:27. It came out as a single that year, after “Body Language”, “Mandarine Girl” and “Darko”, and before “Night Falls”. The album was well received: Pitchfork gave it 8.6 and placed it in its top 50 albums of 2006, Resident Advisor gave it 4.5 out of 5, and Mojo noted its “brooding, tranced-out feel”. Pitchfork also put “In White Rooms” in its top 100 tracks of 2006, and the track was used in an episode of CSI: NY. The 2007 Movements tour ran to 150 shows in almost 20 months, with dates at Sónar in Barcelona and a tour with Röyksopp; the duo also opened for Depeche Mode in Berlin. The albums kept coming: The Sun & the Neon Light (2008), More! (2010), Eve (2013), Galvany Street (2017) and Cut the Strings (2018).
From doubt to live favourite
At first the duo did not want to play it live, so it took a while to become a crowd favourite. In 2016 Movements was remastered and reissued for its tenth anniversary with new remixes, and celebrated with a show at London’s Royal Festival Hall that November. Booka Shade’s bass lines also travelled: Jax Jones, who features on Duke Dumont’s “I Got U”, built his 2016 hit “You Don’t Know Me” on the bass line of “Body Language”.
For more melodic German club music from the same years, keep digging with “Rej” by Âme and Dixon.
FAQ
When was In White Rooms released?
In 2006. It is track 10 on Booka Shade’s second album, Movements, released by Get Physical Music on 16 May 2006, and came out as a single the same year.
Why is it called In White Rooms?
Booka Shade named it after a hotel in Europe where the rooms, bars and lobby were all white. They have said the title has no deeper meaning.
Who are Booka Shade?
Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier, a German duo from the Frankfurt scene who co-founded the label Get Physical Music in 2002.
