Double Helix: Self-Promotion and Reinvention

In this increasingly digitised and MySpace-saturated world, it's perhaps not surprising to discover a group on their way to success without playing a single live gig, but you can't help but wonder how it all works - only five years ago, telling someone that you were being given airplay on Radio One and releasing on an international basis would lead them to suspect that the greasy hands of a slick mogul were behind it.

Edinburgh-based Double Helix are doing just that, but they only have their own graft and self-promotion to thank. Texture and Sola Perplexus are the brains and talent behind Double Helix, and this year they are featuring on Crunk's Not Dead Vol 2, a compilation featuring bands on an electro, punk or hip-hop tip. The beginnings of this adventure started when DH got involved in a MySpace promo-share with Scream Club (K Records / Ipecac).

What exactly is a promo-share?
"Most unsigned / self-releasing bands have good local distribution networks, and can shift 100 or so vinyls pretty easily. However, most vinyl pressing plants need you to get 1000 or so made for a 12" run, which is outside the financial means of most bands at that level," says Texture. "Scream Club's idea was that we would all band together and release the 12" as a compilation, fitting as many bands on as possible. The 12" will be very diverse and radical – everything from the infectiously camp to the punk as fuck, from twisted electro to raucous hip-hop–meets performance art."

How did you get involved with Scream Club?
"I was speaking to Cindy Wonderful from Scream Club on MySpace about trying to book a gig in Edinburgh, which never happened in the end, Edinburgh being a place which is very hard to get decent gigs in for underground bands. Unless you play shitty Franz Ferdinand rip-off indie pish or mainstream house, you'd be better off goin' to Glasgow," muses Texture. "Scream Club are a really experimental electro / hip-hop / punk band, who have previously recorded with Peaches and Chicks On Speed. Although Double Helix are not a queer band, they liked our experimental side and were really digging the beats and lyrical conundrums of our track Complacency."

DH have already released vinyl on their own Audiodacity label, and Crystal Distortion's Labrat Audiochemicals, so the idea of releasing their music through smaller ventures is no longer a novelty. Sola Perplexus is an old-hand at the DJ and live gig circuit now, having spent the last ten years DJing across Scotland, England and Ireland as Perplexus or his alter ego Morph. You may remember the celebrated gigs he played at Pillbox, Dogma, Lost, JakN, and Curios?, to name a few.

The group have been together for four years, reducing from a five-piece band (losing their drummer to Found) to a duo as time progressed. Their material is electro and techno influenced, but their live sets take in dubstep and breakbeat along the way: fans of Sola Perplexus' solo work will recognise the trademark 'wonk' and grinding bass, which is overlaid with Texture's poetic vocals that cover everything from high school shootings to evolutionary theory, drawing on influences such as hip-hop artist El-P ("some of his rhymes are so challenging, they provide real mental jump-off points for my own thinking"), Edinburgh-based performance poet Jem Rolls, Spank Rock and Aesop Rock. Hints of distorted guitar wail sit alongside head-fuck techno reminiscent of Chan 'n' Mikes Records output, the hurry-up urgency of blistering breakbeat grime, the descending bass of d&b and distended electronics.

How does it feel to be going international without even playing a live single gig?
"It feels great – we've been lucky enough to have been supported by Radio One (played by both Mary-Anne Hobbes and Gilles Peterson) on a couple of occasions, so we know there are people out there who have heard the band, and are just waiting for more releases and some gigs. We definitely feel like we've got something to prove – we've gone about the process in the opposite way from most bands... My dream would be to get together several Scottish acts and put together some kind of joint road adventure. I think it's time Edinburgh bands broke out. I'd love to play with Penpushers, Great Ezcape or Sileni, but it will of course be a question of time and money."