Double A & Twist come back to Montreal to fight for the thinking man's d&b

by KRISTA.

Two grown men wearing only their boxer shorts sit in their kitchen-cum-office. 12" record sleeves cover 80 per cent of the counter space. The telephone is at their feet and labels and stickers are strewn about the floor. The two men are chainsmoking like the old guy from The X-Files. There is not a clean dish in sight, a glass to drink from or a plate to eat off. Just a lot of records, boxes and paper.

That was the scene in drum & bass duo Double A & Twist's Washington, D.C., apartment in late November 1998. With the release of their first 12" on their own label, Dune Recordings, looming only a few weeks away, the two had been forced to transform their not-so-swinging pad into an A&R firm-slash-record distribution operation. "There were boxes everywhere. It was a disaster... we were a disaster," says DJ Double A, referring to the duo's south-of-the-border living quarters. "We would get up in the morning and get on the phone and not eat or drink or anything until about four in the afternoon. Just work."

Such is the glamourous life of many a struggling DJ/producer, trying to make ends meet and make it big all at once. Working for nothing and living every moment "for the tunes." Ask any famous DJ/Producers and they'll probably give you some variation on the same story; they lived and breathed for the music and everything else took a back seat.

Love at first sight

It's like a bizarre rite of passage. Although Double A & Twist are closer to the end of that passage now than ever before, they have beººen living the hard life (and they'll be quick to remind you of just how hard) since their union in 1992.

Like star-crossed lovers, they found each other behind the DJ booth at a warehouse rave one wintry night in Montreal, and their lives were forever changed. Since that night the duo of Aaron Siegner (Double A) and Oliver Sasse (Twist) have made it their personal mission to get the sound of drum & bass recognized as viable dancefloor material in Montreal, and put their handprints in the cement on the drum & bass boulevard of dreams. Or whatever they call it.

For them, the Dune label represents some control over the form that drum & bass takes. "That's why people have their own labels," says Siegner, "so that they can put out exactly what they want to put out, and not have to try to convince some record company exec that it'll sell. We make all the decisions and all the mistakes."

Double A & Twist's confidence in themselves is somewhat mystifying, but it works. "We have set really high standards for what we want to put out, and we know what's up as far as d & b goes." The first release off the label, "Midnight Run/Wireless," received props from London's key players and has already sold out. The second release will feature mixes by Source Direct, a major U.K. talent.

Dawn of d&b

Let's segue intoto a little history: in 1992­1993, drum & bass as we know it today was still in its fetal stage. The Goldies and Grooveriders of the scene were just reaching their peak in the U.K., but very little of what they were doing was making it to our side of the world. The music was unrefined, the beats less discernible, the keys simpler.

In Montreal, the only place to hear music other than house was at a dirty rave in a crummy warehouse on a less-than-adequate sound system. It was the pre-megaclub era. But it was in these very warehouse raves that Double A & Twist began their DJ careers by bugging every promoter in town to put them on the bill, though none of them even knew what drum & bass was.

"It felt like banging your head against a brick wall day in and day out," says Siegner. "Nobody, but nobody, wanted to hear about it. They all said it was too hard and too dark... they didn't get it. And still don't for the most part."

Regardless, Siegner and Sasse kept pressing on until they found a way to make their music more appealing to non-believers. They started to put together their own events showcasing a major talent from London's drum & bass scene alongside a major North American house name (Plan B with DJ Rap and John Howard, Horizons with LTJ Bukem and DJ Diz, The Joint with Kemistry and Storm and Tiga). And it worked... sort of. Eventually their persistence began to pay off in the form of residencies at clubs like Angel's and Sona.

By 1996 Double A & Twist had pretty well established themselves as the dons of drum & bass in this city. They had signed their first track, "Border Patrol," to the NYC-based Sm:)e label. They had the weekly Session with DJ Jordan Dare, were playing every Friday in the Lounge at Sona and at raves in Toronto and New York regularly. Early in 1997 they released their second track on the U.K. label Basement, which earned them respect with the British drum & bass kings and brought them recognition within North America's burgeoning scene. They had developed "their sound," a mix of heavy tech-influenced beats and LTJ Bukem-inspired deep grooves.

Despite the success, the duo found themselves running into "artistic differences" with promotional groups and other DJs, which made for tenuous relations and earned them the reputation within the DJ circuit as being hard to work with. "We always thought that we were behaving professionally," says Siegner. "Our part of the deal was to show up and play and get paid. But if the promoter couldn't pay us or tried to dick us around, we would lose it."

However, by late 1997 the growing popularity of the drum & bass sound had created a split in the scene that pretty much pitted one camp against the other: the easy, accessible sound of "jump-up" versus the deep and "intelligent" style of Double A & Twist. "By May 1998 we were raging," says Sasse of the duo's pre-departure situation. "We were having heart attacks, nothing was cool. We didn't know how to get a handle on things anymore. We needed to get out." And so, in July of 1998, they packed up their records and their studio equipment and relocated to Washington, D.C.

A capitol idea

Initially, the move seemed to make sense, but the pair soon realized that there were some sacrifices to be made. Even though they were playing the odd gig at D.C.'s superclub Buzz and making the occasional trip to New York or Philly for one-offs, they no longer held a residency.

"There are more people who are super-keen there," says Siegner, "but they aren't as musically sophisticated. The scene is much younger and more rave oriented." Double A & Twist found themselves going out far less than before and spending double the time in the studio and working on the label.

"The decision to move home came from the fact that the label was being run from our kitchen in D.C., but the head office was at Bombay Records in Montreal," Sasse says. "It didn't make sense to be in D.C. anymore." And so in December of 1998, Sasse and Siegner packed up again and moved back home.

The few months that the duo were south of the border saw Montreal's affection for rough beats and tearin' rhythms grow exponentially. There are now at least twice as many DJs claiming to be purveyors of d&b than when Double A & Twist ruled the decks. Musically, d&b has branched off into almost as many sub-genres as house and techno, with many kids now going more for the hip hop-laced jump-up sound than Dune's headier, more experimental one. "Sure, it's a bit of a challenge being back," admits Siegner, "because before we had pretty much the only night."

"But it doesn't really matter," pipes in Sasse, "because what's really important to us now is the label. We've realized that half of the things that we used to stress about before just aren't worth the time or the energy."

Since their return, Double A & Twist claim to have adopted a more laid-back approach. They have slid comfortably back into the two residencies they held before their hiatus--Angel's Easy Tuesdays and the Wednesday night Session at Jaï Bar--and are more than happy to devote the rest of their energies to Dune. For the time being, everything else is superfluous.

"We used to worry so much about how people perceived us," says Siegner, "and how much they respected us. We wanted to be popular and accepted, but now we have our own label, and can do whatever we want."

Dune launches "Midnight Run" 12", with Matrix, Adam L, Ronin, and MC Fuse and Krista at Stereo, Friday, February 19, midnight, $15