T.W.I.N.S.

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 Going clubbing in the capital ain't what it used to be. Dubstep bores, throwback indie, cold queues outside dismal superclubs... does anyone remember when going out involved a bit of glamour? A bit of sleaze? A bit of... fun? 

T.W.I.N.S remember. They remember when clubland was a place of seedy thrills and endless possibility. Their electro-punky live shows hark back to a bacchanalian East End before gentrification came to town, a gleeful blast of sexy anarchy and high camp, freaky samples and live percussion, of gangsters in tailored suits and gyrating semi-naked dancers in horse's heads. They write songs that make you shake a leg before they even get to the chorus, and they write choruses that you'll whistle when you're doing the walk of shame the morning after.

T.W.I.N.S.
T.W.I.N.S, Laurence and Hugo, first met some hazy late night that no-one can quite remember, and cemented their artistic relationship by composing music for a gay porn series (called Indie Boys, for 'guys that like guitars'). They played together in a rock'n'roll band, toured the UK, but that fizzled out. "We just wanted to get back to why we wanted to make music in the first place," recalls Laurence, "to do something outrageous."

Drawing influence from Talking Heads, M.I.A and The Mighty Boosh, they play a club music that's entertaining and organic, made out of trumpets, handclaps, live percussion and a bunch of curious instruments bought in a souk in Marrakech. Debut single 'Found A Flat', a Jarvis Cocker-esque tale of poverty in the capital set to a perky electro-urban bounce, the pair venting amusingly about nightmare rent prices and unscrupulous landlords, of "jokers and thieves/and thieves and jokers".

For a taste of their surrealistic, anarchic side, try the flipside, 'Ride The Horsey' - a gallop of clip-clopping beats and live brass blasts that's accompanied onstage by a pair of horse-headed dancers.

T.W.I.N.S.
When not playing in T.W.I.N.S, Laurence moonlights as a club DJ, and something of this spirit feeds into the band: a mission to entertain whatever the cost. "If you're a band and you come onstage at a club at 1am, you don't want to interrupt everyone from having a good time. So we want to do something visual, raucous and unpredictable". The pair have been selective about gigs so far, but a show supporting the Scissor Sisters at London club institution The Cock's 10th birthday celebration at XOYO was a highlight. So was playing on a bill with Boy George at Shoreditch Park last year.

So far, though, 2013 has been spent working on their debut single. Self-produced but mastered into a pneumatic club bounce by Milan Adamik (Azari & III, Crystal Castles), each track features its own video. The blackly comic short for 'Found A Flat' sees T.W.I.N.S making like a modern day Kray Twins, sorting out the bad landlords of east London (check the natty tailoring, courtesy of fashion designer Matteo Mollinari), while a guerrilla-style dance video for 'Ride The Horsey' was directed by renowned fashion/music/brand director John Bland.

'Found A Flat'/'Ride The Horsey' is released on Split Records. See T.W.I.N.S preview the single live at Power Lunches in Dalston on April 4 – entry is free.

T.W.I.N.S.

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