September 19, 2019

Double Touch gear up for ZoneOut performance

Classical piano and composition from Van Anh Nguyen and DJ, drum production from Mark Olsen make for a textured blend of contemporary inspired, and classical themed sounds, forming the basis of Double Touch. Ahead of ZoneOut International Music Festival next week, we chatted to Double Touch about their craft and what excites them about live performances.

When did you first come to the realisation and believe that these two forms of music that appear so different can come together seamlessly? We have always enjoyed listening to various genres of music and so when it came to writing music together, it was natural to fuse the genres and forms together.

Can you talk about if as a classical musician, it was hard to take up a different musical avenue in this project?
Van-Anh has always enjoyed dabbling in other genres as it breaks up the rigidity of structure in classical music so this is refreshing and rewarding to go down this path.

Vice versa, as someone who dabbles in the DJ setting, how was it to see how classically trained musicians operate and digest music?
Van-Anh has perfect pitch so subconsciously, she will dissect the music with key structures, classical forms and split all the instrumentation up; she’s very melody driven as opposed to focusing on the beat and production. Also, most classical musicians are opposite to how I grew up with music, playing in bands. Classical musicians for the most part rely on sheet music whereas everything is done by ear in my world and a lot of people can’t read sheet music.

What do you learn from each other through all that discovery?
We’ve learnt that there is much to respect on both sides and that less is more. Classical music can often be so elaborate but so can produced electronic music with all its layers. Similarly to the words of Coco Chanel where she said ‘before you leave the house, take one thing off’, music is much the same. You spend so much time crafting the songs that often, you need to take a step back and strip it back a little.

Songs like ‘Arabia’, ‘Baghdad’ draw on culture and traditional sounds. Can you talk about how that intrigues you as musicians?
We’ve always loved to travel and through hearing different instruments from different countries, it add flavour and a dimension that creates a foreign feel, making the music more intriguing for us (and hopefully for our listeners as well). The various techniques and types of sounds that can be made all add melodic and rhythmic interest.

What is the process like of trying to put your own twist to sounds that are so deeply engrained in history and tradition?
This is the most interesting part for us. We will write often with soft synths and then go into the recording studio to record live strings. Then, we take it back into the studio and tweak it to make it our own. With Van-Anh’s foundation being in classical piano playing, it is also really nice to have the raw pure live instruments layered over electronics. It gives it a realness that often, we don’t touch.

How long does that usually take to brainstorm, and then turn it into something listenable?
This can range between within one night to several weeks. We like to go away for writing retreats (we do it annually in the Blue Mountains and then Bali as well). Dedicating time and space purely to writing makes your mind work in different ways … maybe it’s the air or high altitude in the Blue Mountains but we’ve always had success there! We’ve gotten pretty good at working remotely with Van-Anh being in Los Angeles a lot so we’ll send parts to each other and craft it like that. It’s always best and fastest when we are in the same room though.

Can you talk about what you enjoy most about bringing it to the live show?
We LOVE bringing the music to life at live shows. We spend so much time tweaking and in the studios so to see it be played OUT, that’s what we live for. Of course, people’s reactions are priceless especially when they react to an original composition, there’s no better feeling.

What are you most looking forward to about ZoneOut, and what can people expect?
Most of our performances have funnily enough been overseas so it’ll be nice to play to a home crowd. We’re excited about the festival being dedicated to chillout music. People can expect a live set from us, mixing DJing, beats and percussion (Mark) with piano and synths (Van-Anh) and live strings. We want people to feel and get out of their seats and dance J

What’s next as you guys move forward?
We have just had a release on Buddha Bar as well as an EP release with ASTRX. We are playing at Return to Rio Festival 2019 in November so pretty pumped for that and in between that, we plan for another writing session.