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There is a certain type of band that goes that extra length to seek out inspiration in the strangest of places, from old houses, to run down theatres that have the atmosphere of a ghostly Moulin Rouge. The Hook And The Twin are one of those bands who have taken that extra effort to the next level, recording an experimental blend of indie retro-fitted to the present day.

One part Miami House, one part rock, one part experimentation, one part Karftwerk they have taken a full year to record their debut and it's set to be nothing short of special. December 12th saw the release of their first single 'We're So Light' which blends all the unique and revolutionary elements found in the ethos of a group set to blow up the world of indie music.

So firstly the Hook And The Twin is quite a unique name, where exactly did the inspiration come from?

The name comes from a painting that a friend of ours did ages and ages ago, this kind of gruesome ugly picture that we just liked the title of.

There are two of you in the band, tell us a little bit about how you met and eventually ended up collaborating.

We've known each other since we were kids, we just started making music together when we were about 15 or so. Back then we were also in another band as the rhythm section basically, Marcus was the drummer and I sang and played bass. We always had this feeling that we wanted to break out of that structure to start making some beats and rhythms of our own. It came out of that really, we devised this computer system that meant we could layer up loads of different sounds but in quite a live way so that we could play of each other and if one of us had an idea we could stick it down straight away. It's that quick song building system that has really allowed us to get things going.

Take us quickly through the roles that each of you play in the band.

Marcus tends to play the drums, but his voice is starting to break out into the songs more and more. Then I just kind of feed off that really, whatever I'm doing usually fits the format of iterating the parts of the song around his beats.

Would you say the songwriting process is quite experimental for you guys then?

I guess it is quite experimental as it does have this ordered way of exploring things when we write. Ordered might be the best way to describe it as it's really not, I mean it happens in the same way: we'll just get together and I'll be messing around with synthesiser or the bass, we start messing around then usually within a few minutes something starts to come together. That's the way it seems to work!

The new single 'We're So Light' seems to have a bit of a Miami House sound to it, was that a sound you were attempting to capture?

We definitely wanted it to have that old-fashioned house feel behind it all, but I think we also wanted to bring in a bit of that German 70s sound. The kind of synthesiser sound you hear on records from the era, then we did this vocal layering thing, which we've done across the whole record. It comes from the influence of people like Fleetwood Mac, that kind of amazing shimmering effect you get when you pile loads and loads of human voice on top of one another. It's that real sheen you can get when you pile the harmonies on really thick. There is a bit of a wild element to it as well because we didn't tune any of the vocals or anything like that, which I think you would do if it was a real pop record. So there are sort of shreaks and howls in there as well as the harmony.

Your last single 'Tribes' had a bit of an '80s vibe as well, especially in the video, what is the film it features and why did you choose it?

It was down to the director, she found it, she's a friend of ours who makes these great films. The video is cut from a director called Fassbender, I can't actually remember what it's called but it's a German film from the late 70s/early 80s. We loved the look of it, that kind of quite, muted but clear colour palate that you get in films from that era and the tie in to that part of German cinematography synched up well with our sound. There is sort of a comic violence to the clips that we used as well which also fit the song very nicely.

What process do you guys choose to fit images to your music as judging from your Youtube channel it seems to be a fairly big part of the process.

We've made videos for all the singles so far, well all but one of them. Each one of them to some extent has involved some kind of found footage. We kind of decide on a look I guess and then gather together a bunch of clips, then try to make something that forces a story on the song, but still has a vague narrative. The 'We're So Light' video has us in it but only in a very shadowy way, that actually came out of a bag of film that I found in a park, this great stack of abandoned 8mm film that is all rain damaged with all this grit and mud. We got this guy to digitize it for us and it turned out to be this beautiful documentary from the 50s about Britain but all badly distorted so you've got these bright flashes of light every so often. Then we did some shots projected over us while we were playing to create this quite quirky look.

Do you find you are also influenced by visuals as well as audio then or does it tend to be an afterthought?

It's an afterthought in the fact that we begin the song before finding the visual world that fits it. But we probably do start with some influence of visual imagery, which is certainly present in a lot of our songs, particularly a kind of association with a place as we seem to have a strong affection for wherever we first recorded or wrote the song. We've laid down some of the songs in some very strange places, that as a result has an influence on the videos.

We've heard that you've been recording in old houses late at night and other such odd places, how do you think that aids the process?

Sometimes it's the sound, we recorded a bunch of vocals for 'We're So Light' in an old theatre that we managed to get into. There are always really odd peculiar corners you can find where sound does really interesting things. For all the sorts of plug-ins you could add to a vocal once it's recorded, if you get onto tape this sort of curious effect felt within the building it can give the song a really strong sense of atmosphere which I think is a really healthy thing to feed off in building a track. These places help things to happen we find, I guess the same applies to working at night rather than during the day, everything has this strange feeling to it. It makes me feel that I can concentrate on something better get into it a little deeper.

Do you think there is an aspect of subliminality to the recordings, certain sounds that the listener might pick up on without realising.

I'm sure there are and that is at work whenever you're making or listening to music. I suppose we try to reflect that by encouraging that kind of exploration by piling in loads of layers. There are lots of details in there that are turned down quite low, or some loops that might sound like it's going round for two minutes might be constantly changing.

So it sounds like the album is nearly finished, can you tell us any information about the themes within the album?

The album is done actually! It's interesting to think about themes though I haven't really looked at it in that way yet. I think there is this tussle all the way through like I was talking about earlier between getting this sheen of sort of highly produced that comes from this 70s music that we really lovely offset by the more raucous stuff that often enough is just drums and bass playing off each other. There's this song called 'Bang, Bang, Cherry' that we put out as a single, at root that's just drums, bass and singing, but then in the gaps we've filled in these cranky old synths that we've harnessed from all over the place. Sonically that is a process that is repeated over the course of the album.

So now the albums finished, did you encounter any issues in approaching it as your debut or did it flow quite well?

It flowed well a bit too well, almost, we took ages doing it which was great for us but it means that it has taken a while for the whole process to unfold. We put out a couple of singles well over a year ago and we then decided it'd be a better idea to make a full record. We probably took just over a year to make it, but it enabled us to go into it really deep, rather than go into the studio to bash it out within three weeks be able to go out into certain explorations to find strange places to work. I think it's all fed into something that is very close to what we'd want it to be.