The Twoks

Xani Kolac (electric violin/vocals) + Mark Leahy (drums) —- It was midnight on a Tuesday in Melbourne. A violin and drums duo called The Twoks were playing their final notes on stage at The Espy Front Bar. It’s a rowdy, St Kilda pub, yet the crowd were listening intently, waiting until the last note was played. It was on this Tuesday night, that Xani Kolac (electric violin/vocals) and her drummer, Mark Leahy knew for sure that they had something pretty spectacular - especially if a late night, beer-drinking crowd at The Espy had stopped to listen. The Twoks’ ability to win over a crowd developed while performing a season of shows in 2011 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. “We had to get up on open mic stages in front of hundreds of people who had never heard of us before and in five minutes, capture their full attention and win them over so that they’d buy tickets to see our show. It was like we had entered this massive competition where we had to win over and above the thousands of other shows going on at that festival,” Xani remembers. It is an unconventional line-up, violin and drums, but the sound is full and unexpected - especially from a two-piece. “Being a duo with violin/vocals and drums, people are often a bit unsure about what it’s going to sound like. I get people coming up to me all the time after we’ve played saying they were pretty skeptical at first. Then we start playing and their perceptions change completely so that it’s all about the music again.” The Twoks began when Xani was studying jazz and improvisation at the VCA - a new direction for the classically-trained violinist. Mixing her love for the sound of combined strings with improvisation and contemporary bands such as Sigur Ros, Bjork and Camille, she built dense and cinematic layers of sound with a loop station and multiple electric guitar effects pedals alongside dark, tribal drum grooves. “I always loved pop songs but at that stage I wasn’t singing, so I would write instrumentals with verses and choruses. They were epic - sometimes twenty minutes long - but full of these little, catchy melodies.” These catchy melodies began to take on a shape of their own once Xani began adding her vocals to the mix. Fast forward to 2013, The Twoks found themselves playing on a small stage in a big tent called “The Pineapple Lounge” at Woodford Folk Festival. The duo were performing for a crowd who were dancing and screaming and singing along to their songs about voltage and “doing whatever the hell you want”. It was during this performance that The Twoks really started to believe in their own sound. According to Xani “It wasn’t about our unconventional line-up anymore. We were more than that. It was about the sounds we were making and the type of music we were playing and how we made people feel. Here we were, up on a stage dripping sweat with people crowd-surfing to our music! People wanted to dance and move and express themselves in all sorts of ways. We knew then that we had found our sound. We don’t play sad music. We don’t play folk or gypsy or classical or anything you’d usually associate with a violin, we’re doing happy, feel-good dance music.” Throughout 2013, The Twoks tried different ways of recording. “It’s always the struggle for us - representing what we do live on a recording,” admits Mark. To improve on this, the duo worked with different engineers and producers so as to practice the art of recording. Their upcoming single - which will be ready for release in February 2014 - is called “First Light” and was produced by Tony Buchen (The Preatures, Andy Bull) at 301 Studios in Sydney. According to Xani, “It really did feel like we were finally seeing the light. Tony helped shape not only a song, but also our own perceptions of ourselves as a band.” The cinematic, twenty-minute instrumentals were being replaced with dance tracks and melodies you could sink your teeth into. “You could really hear a lot of the music I had always loved but never associated with the music I was making, like Kate Bush, Robyn, Stevie Nicks, Phoenix, MGMT, Nina Simone and St Vincent. It was all coming out.” Melbourne has a lot to offer when it comes to live music. “We get up on any stage, be it North-side or South-side or any side, and we take in the people around us and shape our performance based on them. We’re so lucky to be spoilt for choice here when it comes to picking and choosing the gigs we want to play.” And it is while playing gigs that the duo refine their craft. “We would make up songs completely on the spot, just to see if we could. That’s what we’re about, that’s what The Twoks are about. We are at our best when we’re right on the edge. Once things start getting predictable, it’s time to throw something new into the mix,” evolution being central to The Twoks’ ethos. Mark and Xani have always been happy doing what they love and The Twoks has been all the better for it. “We just love The Twoks! We really do. We love how it sounds and love what it can do. We will always get that rush when something unexpected happens - like a whole room moving together because that’s what the music made them do.” —- “The Twoks are pretty unusual. Pretty and unusual.” (Hilary Martha Donald, EdFest Magazine, 2011) “A force to behold.” (themusic.com, 2013) —- VIOLIN + DRUMS + DOING WHATEVER WE WANT New single out now: https://open.spotify.com/track/4Unv44ZwHPdiTtOejYLdGG