The best game is Indie Rock Us Weekly. If you have even a passing familiarity with this most excellent tabloid, you'll understand when I posit that Alex Lukashevsky is the Mickey Rourke of the Toronto indie scene. An elusive, endearing weird, to be sure, but totally and fully a genius to the max. He commands the cra-a-a-a-a-azy good Deep Dark United (also Ryan Driver, Tania Gill, Brodie West, and Nick Fraser). DDU are Wavelength vets and sort of our shadowy masters. Kate Carraway and Alex Lukashevsky sent some emails.

CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT MAKES YOUR UPCOMING WAVELENGTH/IMAGES FESTIVAL APPEARANCE DIFFERENT FROM A REGULAR GIG?

There will be a visual element - dance and "video painting" - running in unison with our performance. I guess we'll be affecting each other, maybe reacting to each other too. I don't know the video artist very well, but I've seen Aimee dance quite a few times, and her movement always elicits an aural response from me. More so than most bands and musical performers that I see around.

WHAT KIND OF AURAL RESPONSE IS THAT?

A friendly one.

I WASN'T INSINUATING ANYTHING DIRTY, REALLY. CAN YOU TELL US MORE ABOUT THE SET-UP WITH IMAGES, AND WHO THIS AIMEE CHARACTER IS?

Aimee Dawn Robinson is a dancer - she often dances to no music, or as she bills it, "...to the songs in her head". The Images association is a Kevin Parnell concept. We met the video artist, Jeremy, very briefly. I don't know what to say about it - whatever happens at Wavelength will be as much a surprise to me as to anyone else.

WHAT'S THE WORD ON DDU LATELY? NOT TO BE ALL PRESSUREY BUT IT'S BEEN YONKS SINCE ANCIENT [SEMINAL DDU ALBUM PUT OUT BY BLOCKS RECORDING CLUB].

Deep Dark United plays at the Tranzac once a month, plus whatever comes our way. Ancient came out September 2004, is that a long time ago? Have you heard it?

OF COURSE I'VE HEARD IT. ARE YOU BEING COY? I'M NOT AN ASS-LICKER BUT I THINK IT'S A REALLY IMPORTANT DOCUMENT IN THIS CITY'S MUSIC HISTORY. I FOUND A COPY AT A HOUSE (AN APPROPRIATELY AND INCREDIBLY HAUNTED ONE) I WAS LIVING IN A YEAR AND A HALF AGO AND I WAS KIND OF SPOOKED BY IT. YOU GUYS AND ANAGRAM AND THE CREEPING NOBODIES ARE, I THINK, SOME OF THE BEST WORKING BANDS IN THE AREA THESE DAYS. THAT'S TOO OBVIOUS, BUT THEMS THE FACTS.

I am not being coy, actually, I'm a Jew. Thank you for the kind words. I do have to say that I feel we are most like ourselves when we play live, and that it's not always pretty. The other night we played at the Music Gallery with Laura Barrett and Akron/Family and it was tough for us. We were stymied and even frustrated. Personally I overplayed, as a collective we didn't get up to much musically and when Nick unleashed on the drums, he just ended up impressing the people. Still, playing live is what I'm committed to and I think everyone in the band is too. CDs are just things, they're visual more than anything. I'm sure we'll make one soon though; we may be stupid, but we're not dumb.