inthemix | Features | Twocker: Police regulation dancefloor filth

The name Twocker is a reference to ‘TWOC’, an anagram used by UK police that stands for “Taken without Owners Consent”, referring to stolen cars. But it’s also developed yet another meaning, as a reference to a production aesthetic that brutally mashes up techno, fidget house and electro in a combination that brings massive dancefloor highs and nasty bass drops.

While the name ‘Twocker’ may be fairly new to the Beatport charts, dig a little deeper though and you’ll discover that the duo of Calvertron and Will Bailey were already well established before they hooked up to make music together. Calvertron has over 100 vinyl releases, while Will Bailey is a nu-school gun with multiple releases already out on Toolroom Records. Ahead of their Australian tour this October, ITM talks everything Twocker with Calvertron.

You’re both pretty established producers and DJs on your own – how did you hook up?

Through MySpace. I sent Will a track, he emailed me back a week or so later saying he liked it and we decided to hook up to make a track, pretty soon after that Will came to my studio every week for about a year.

Where’d the name come from?

We called ourselves Bassjacker first (inspired by Phonejacker, a UK comedy show) only to realise the name had already been taken by some guys in Holland, so we did the honourable thing and let them continue. We thought the name might end up type casting us to only have tunes with jacking basslines so it wasn’t a perfect name anyway. So… I was at a party with some mates and I got everyone in the room trying to think of a name pretty much all night, and it came to me then, it was gonna be ‘Twockers’ at first, but then I thought Twocker sounded better even though it may imply it was just one person. It comes from the UK police terminology ‘TWOC’ which Stands for “Taken without Owners Consent” which is the title they give to car thieves. For the record, neither of us steal cars.

What are the ingredients that you think make up a banging tune?

Depends on the style really but I think what is universally essential to all types of music is you always need a memorable hook, even for the DJ tools. Whether that’s a bleep, a drum noise or a huge vocal sampled from an old track, you have to keep the listeners attention through out the mix. I also like contrast, when you build something up to a huge crescendo then drop back to nothing I think its really effective.

What are you working on at the moment?

We are working separately and have done for a while now. This week I’ve remixed a track for Alex Peace on a label called Movement from Chicago, I’m in the middle of another remix for DJ Dan that was originally released on Subliminal Records (which is Erick Morillo’s label) and the next project I will hopefully get nailed by the end of weekend is a remix of Guru Josh Project Infinity.

What can we expect from your sets in Australia?

Loads of energy, good mixing, dirty basslines, jacking beats. We try to connect with the crowd as much as possible and party with them so hopefully we should blow the roof off! Bring it on! Plenty of unreleased promos from both of us too!

This is your last tour together, describe how you’re feeling about that?

Well, all good things must come to an end, we live a long distance apart and it was becoming increasingly difficult to hook up, I don’t think working in a partnership is ever easy especially with people who are already are already so individually focused, I think we did well to do as much as we did and think we both learnt a lot from our time together.

Who would your fantasy line up consist of?

Popof, Dubfire, Adam Beyer, Chris Leibing, Mauro Picotto. Techno techno techno techno!

Is there life after Twocker?

Sure is, I’ve got a lot of exciting projects on the horizon including a new label named Jack Knife Records which has just had its debut release go live on Beatport. I will continue with the bass-driven electro stuff as well as concentrating on my minimal techno/tech house sound. Watch this space…

Twocker Australia tour dates…

Oct 10th – Destination? @ Ambar – Perth
Oct 11th – The Cross, Sydney
Oct 18th – Empire – Brisbane
Oct 22nd – Halo, Hobart
Oct 24th – Red Square, Adelaide