Russell RockwellDeciding how to quantify Atlanta techno aficionado TWINS (That Which Is Not Said) becomes more difficult with each new release. Since 2007, DKA and CGI label chief Matt Weiner has utilized the moniker for a variety of solo projects ranging from techno to house, and even traditional post-punk. Through it all, Weiner has developed a talent for focusing his energy on whatever aspect of underground music reflects his interests in the moment and channeling it into something both emotive and infectious.
His new self-titled LP on 2MR is his most coherent and danceable record yet (oh, and it’s easily one of the best Atlanta records of 2018). Over 8 tracks, he pulls from macabre ‘80s post-punk and Berlin club beats without sacrificing any of the bracing EBM hooks that swirl through his cavernous synth-pop. Mid tour with Gel Set, I caught him on his day off after the Atlanta show, before he left for the East Coast and Canada. We pushed through the numb fog of hangovers to discuss his expanding palette of sounds, working with 2MR, and his first time touring in Europe.
This is a self-titled LP, and when a lot of artists go for the S/T, it’s partially to add some gravity to the release. Is that what you were going for?
Definitely, and also just because I don’t think I’ve made it that obvious that TWINS is an acronym so I wanted to make that clear. You know, there’s so many ‘twins’ and I wanted to make it my own.
So is the refocusing on the name reflected in the expansion of your sound on this record?
I guess so. It really came out in 2013. I’d been using the name TWINS since 2007-2008 just kind of on the side, and I didn’t have any serious plans with it, and was mostly playing in bands. But then I realized that I didn’t want to rely on the whims of other people anymore, and I decided if I wanted to focus fully on something it would be my solo project and bands could be the side projects. Then I started working with Clan Destine, and I thought about changing my name since I was getting more serious about it. I came up with that acronym, I guess, because music is about expressing things you can’t say and I’m not always very articulate with my feelings sometimes, so for me it’s the best way to get it out.
There’s a good amount of singing on this record compared to some of your other releases. Was that intentional?
Oh yeah. I’ve always wanted to do a full on pop record, and I’m not sure if this is quite that, but I always go in with a certain thing in mind and then let it become whatever it becomes rather than try and stick too steadfast to what direction I originally thought. It’s kind of like playing off another person in a band, but instead just playing off yourself.
So you’re a fan of continually developing ideas rather than sticking with what you initially come up with for tracks?
Well, honestly it’s kind of 50/50. Usually my favorite ones come together pretty fast, but there are plenty of exceptions to that too. It’s hard to know going in, like, will I walk out of here with a fully formed song or just a few sketches to think about. Some days it just comes together, but other days I’m going to marinate on it because I like the vibe but I’m not sure what I want to do.
When did you start writing songs specifically for this LP?
So initially a lot of this stuff was supposed to be a different release, and that kept getting delayed, and I kept making more stuff, and I kind of saw a better way to fit it all together. Really, the songs kind of span a period of two years, and there was a lot more stuff made in that time, some of which I’d like to release and some of which will come out eventually. But these songs just happened to work the best together based on the feedback I got from people I trust in these matters. It’s not like I went in thinking “I’m going to make a record about this, and this is going to be the arc.” It’s more like, “These are the songs I have, how does this all fit together?”
So you were building the record around the songs?
Yeah, it depends. That seems to always work best for me, but I’d like to take 2-3 months and just try to make an album in that period and not do anything else. But with life you get interrupted. You make a lot of progress on something, then you don’t get the chance to see it through until months later.
Was it a struggle to make it feel like a cohesive project at the end of the day?
No, not consciously. It took probably two years because that’s how long it took me to feel like this all works as a statement.
You’ve mentioned previously that the song “Taste of Peppermint” was in a part about changes in your personal life. How is that theme reflected in the album as a whole?
Pretty significantly. I guess most of the actual lyrical content comes from a subconscious place. Once I get the basic musical elements of the song down, I’ll start figuring out vocal phrasing and hooks, even before I have a clear idea of what I want to be singing about. Usually, once I’m listening back to some mumble track recording demos, I’ll start to hear something that sounds like a phrase, or even when I’m singing it I can figure out a theme. It’s weird how you write these things and you come back to the words a few weeks later and you think of a situation in your life that it was pulling from, but you weren’t fully aware of it at the time. It’s kind of like a way for me to understand my own feelings and thought processes, so it’s very overly personal lyric writing process. But yeah, a lot of it is about change, because everything is constantly changing. These days my life is settling more in a steady cycle, but the last 2-3 years between jobs, relationships, and moving there have just been a lot of changes.
Has it been a cathartic experience to create this record? I know it’s hard to measure sometimes.
Yeah, I do. Especially because it was such a slow process in a way. But once I finally sat down and heard it all together, I burned a CD and listened to it in my car like 25 times and was like, “I still don’t hate this, so it’s probably good.”
How did you get hooked up with 2MR?
Ryan Parks, who does Fit of Body and Harsh Riddims… 2MR did the compilation that was like a best of Harsh Riddims cassette compilations and I had a track on that. I met those guys in New York a few times, pretty much just through Ryan, and Mike Simonetti had done a mix on Harsh Riddims, because he’d been doing these mixes on small cassette labels.
Did you already have the record done when you shopped it out to them?
They kind of gave me the impetus to really finish it. I was just making songs and was going to send them to people eventually, but last March they came down and did a show at the Sound Table. Mike Simonetti and Stefan Ringer and I DJed, and Adam, who actually runs most of the label operations, also came down. And they were just like, “You should do a record for us.” And I was like, okay, I do actually have a lot of music I’ve been working on. So that really gave me the impetus to work on it. I just sent them like 20 tracks on SoundCloud and we were just going back and forth on those for a while.
You’ve worked with a bunch of labels, and done a bunch of different styles at this point. Do you try and fit the music you’re writing to the label, or does it just work out?
It’s kind of the other way around, but yeah, I’ve been lucky in the sense that usually labels hit me up. Like I haven’t had to send any demos out, so the label usually hears something they already relate to. These days I never really make a pure house or techno style track just because it’s not where my head is at, although I am getting a little back there now. For me the challenge of writing a song is still the most satisfying, but there is a lot to be said for making really compelling dance music, so I’m not really giving it up.
So this is more of a phase than a new direction?
I guess so. It’s like a pendulum. I’m always oscillating on a spectrum, and I still want to pick up guitar again, and do that thing too, so I guess it’s just a matter of time.
Do you feel like your work with Pyramid Club ever affects what you’re doing in TWINS? Like do you ever try to balance things out, or do you not think of your creative output like that?
That’s a good point. I’ve definitely brought stuff to the table with Pyramid Club where Chris [Daresta] is like, “This is more a TWINS track.” And, you know, he’s right at the end of the day, but I do think it’s good to keep some stylistic distinctions. I guess between the last four to five years of TWINS, no one would know what to expect from release to release, so I do want to be a little more consistent and have all this variety not feel so disparate. We’ll see what comes out; I feel like I’m happy with the direction I’m going. I’ve been writing a lot of new songs for a new album. I think I’m in a good place with it. I don’t worry too much about what I’m doing.
So you are still spending a lot of time writing?
Oh yeah, I probably have enough songs for an album, but I want to keep going and have a bigger pool to choose from.
Are you going to be touring anymore at all this year? Or is this run with Gel Set the big tour of 2018?
I probably won’t do one quite as intense as this one, but in the fall I’m going back to Europe. [I’m] not sure how many dates yet. I’ll be playing this festival in Sweden at the end of August. Once I get back from this… May is the perfect time to be thinking about September, so I’ll figure that out.
Your last tour in Europe, at the end of last year—was that your first time touring Europe? How was it?
It was, and it was awesome. I did six shows in 19 days and stayed at a friend’s place in Berlin for a lot of the down time, and stayed with some friends in Amsterdam a few days too. There wasn’t a single bad show; playing in Belgrade was one of the most fun shows I’ve ever played. It was just like on a boat on the river, but it was a night club, and I got to play right on the floor in the middle of the crowd at three in the morning, and I was deliriously tired, so it just felt like, I don’t know… it was cool.
Did you have any expectations for going over there?
I mean, yes and no. Whatever expectations I had were either met or exceeded. I always try to set the bar a little low so I’m not too disappointed you know, but yeah, I can’t wait to go back.
Do you think hanging out with artists and people over there affects your creativity at all?
Absolutely. You can really see what’s happening—it’s very eye-opening. On a lot of the bills, I was the only live act on DJ nights, so I don’t really know what more of the band show situation was really like there, although I feel like I could play either kind. I’d also like to DJ over there, because I did only live sets and I’ve been DJing more. It just seems like it’d be a lot of fun; they definitely do it better than we do it here.
What do you get out of DJing that you don’t get out of live performances?
It’s a very different way to experience and interact with music, because you’re still trying to make editorial decisions and read a room and figure out what’s working and what isn’t. So it’s a very different challenge for me. Like if I’m performing a song you know there are a few things I do that are purposefully loose and improvisatory because it’s fun, but for the most part I know the songs inside and out and I know what to expect and what to do. When I’m playing other people’s music I don’t always remember exactly what’s going to happen next. You can usually feel things coming, but you can’t always predict what’s about to happen and that kind of stuff affects when you’re trying to mix it in with another record. So, there’s just all these things you have to think about that you don’t when you’re playing live. Also, you can play a broader range of music than you would on your own generally and see how that affects people, and that’s been really educational for me.
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