Thursday, February 8 9pm @ the music gallery
Purveyors of: Hypnotic space-folk

Ryan Driver and Sandro Perri are Double Suicide; a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in some very beautiful songs. In interviews they are as dark and inscrutable as the black monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey. But in concert they are as colourful and hypnotic as the psychedelic ending of that very same movie. Evan Dickson wonders if Sandro and Ryan’s habitual contradictions are the key to their wonderful music or just a game designed to befuddle journalists.

Hello, Ryan and Sandro. It’s been about half a year since you played Wavelength. How have you been?

Ryan Driver: Good, great, bad, okay, excellent, neither-here-nor-there, and terrible. In no particular order.

Omniscient Wikipedia knows all; even you, Sandro Perri. It told me that “much of Perri’s music is reminiscent of deepwater, photic zone atmospheres,” (that is “the depth of the water, whether in a lake or an ocean, that is exposed to sufficient sunlight for photosynthesis to occur”). Was that your intention? Did you sit down and think “I’d like to make music that sounds like it’s not too far beneath the surface of a body of water”?

Sandro Perri: Not exactly, but close.

That Wikipedia quote is more a reference to Sandro’s well-known solo project, Polmo Polpo, which translates as “octopus lung” in Italian. Does the name Double Suicide have any relationship with your music, other than the film Double Suicide and the fact that there are two of you?

Ryan: No. The name was chosen arbitrarily. It’s actually just a coincidence that there are two of us.
Sandro: There is a relationship, and while the name is inspired by the film Double Suicide, the meaning is quite different.

In your last interview with Wavelength you described yourself as a cover band of each others’ songs. Do you write most of your songs separately and teach them to one another, or do you typically write them together?

Ryan: We write them together.
Sandro: We write them separately.

Double Suicide’s music is very relaxing and, while I’ve never met Ryan or overheard him in conversation, Sandro seems like an extremely calm person. Are you both that way? What does it take to ruffle your mellow persona? Do you ever write music when you’re angry?

Ryan: I am calm yet calamitous. My emotions have no names.
Sandro: Yes.

I feel that my questions have been overly Sandro-centric to this point. How do you feel about that? Does Ryan feel driven to add anything I haven’t touched on?

Ryan: I don’t mind at all. I think that covers it.

By Evan Dickson