Booka Shade

A proper album rather than a collection of single sides and remixes in the usual house music tradition, Booka Shade's full-length debut has the shapely flow of one long composition. After the two previously released singles that open the album, "Vertigo" and "Double Identity," the album settles into a leisurely flow that incorporates a handful of relatively brief, melodic interludes that function as breathers between the electronic throb of key tracks like "S.T.A.R.R.Z." and "Something Physical." At album's end, the nearly ambient neo-psychedelia of "Moonstruck" (which includes a string sample oddly reminiscent of the hook from the Flaming Lips' "Race for the Prize") caps the record with an intriguingly experimental coda. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide