Photos by Soul City Industries

A few weeks ago, this column previewed an upcoming drum ' bass event featuring DJ Freaky Flow from Toronto, Canada. Next Saturday, another aspect of the Canadian drum 'n' bass scene will be showcased when Montreal DJs Double A & Twist headline a special edition of Soul City Industries' SCI-Fi parties.

SCI-Fi has been attracting growing numbers to VRAS with its third Friday of the month events; now Soul City's Marshall Boardman and Daisuke Fukiyage say they want to raise the bar with "real underground talent from North America and Australia-not the UK-who are big in their home country but unknown in Japan."

DJing under the names Double A & Twist since 1992, Aaron Siegner and Oliver Sasse have been the lynchpins of the developing Montreal drum 'n' bass scene in a mostly house-oriented city. In a Soul City interview, they explained their formation. "In 1992 we were both very into hardcore and jungle. We met at the first party we were ever booked to play at and ended up having the exact same tunes in our box. At the time there were very few other people playing that kind of music in North America so we decided it would be better to work as a unit than to compete against each other."

Throwing events and importing marquee names like Grooverider and LTJ Bukem, the pair went on to host an infamous two-year residency at afterhours club Sona and tour North America coast to coast.

In 1994 they took their party profits and began producing under the name Dune, simultaneously establishing a label of the same name. Their first single, "Midnight Run/Wireless," got rave reviews in MixMag, Muzik and other club 'zines. In addition to releasing monthly singles, they have also issued compilation CDs, and are currently at work on their first full-length Dune album.

Despite their success, Double A & Twist are circumspect about the role of North American artists in the breakbeats/drum 'n' bass movement. "In the next year or so, you're going to see a lot more attention being paid to North American producers and labels. The British scene has always been skeptical about it, and rightfully so, but at a certain point you have to recognize something that is growing so fast. Unfortunately there are also some people over here that try and create a drum 'n' bass scene and a sound that is completely separate from the British sound. That's wrong. Drum 'n' bass is a British thing and you can never take that away from it, you can only add to it."

VRAS, 11/17, 10pm, JY2500, JY2000 (w/flier), w/1d. Tel: 3770-5457.