As winter’s darkness descents on the northern hemisphere, TOR provides genuine warmth with a meeting of melodic masters.

LA-based classical crossover pianist Van-Anh Nguyen and Aussie producer Mark Olsen have been crafting a distinct blend of electronica & orchestral tones as Double Touch, which has seen them ascend to the pinnacle of our scene through projects with All Day I Dream and TRYBESof.

German duo Flowers On Monday are rooted in community, connecting global tastemakers around a sound brimming with benevolent beats with releases on Do Not Sit on the Furniture and the new All Day I Dream In Waves.

Individually, these are four of the most talented artists in modern melodic dance music. Together, they are nothing short of a supergroup. We are thrilled to announce their debut on TOR with the new collaborative single – Lasting.

Crisp percussion and riveting rhythms set us deep into the groove on Lasting, while a warm bassline keeps the feet flowing. Chopped vocal cuts allow minds to wander, with floating melodies perusing across pianos, strings, and synths. Sensational sounds from start to finish.

Double Touch & Flowers on Monday also provide an ‘Atmos Mix‘ of Lasting, dropping the arrangement deep into blissful territory, with full focus on the magical melody for the quiet moments to come.

To celebrate the release of ‘Lasting’ we caught up with both the German and American groups to find out how this masterpiece came to fruition and welcome them to TOR!

WWD: Thanks for joining us today and many congrats on the release! Where are you guys currently located? 

Double Touch:  Thank you!  We are now back in Sydney, Australia for the Summer after being based in LA for the USA Summer.   Always chasing Summer.  🙂

Flowers On Monday: Thank you guys! We’re based in the Black Forest which is in the southern part of Germany. Great inspirational spot for making music!

WWD:  Tell us how this collaboration came to be? Have you guys worked together before?

Double Touch:   We had been chatting to Stefan and Chris for a few years over social media and had always loved the music they were creating.  I’m not sure how the collaborations started but I think it must have been during the pandemic when we had a lot of extra studio time and we decided to work on a few tracks together.   Our first collab “True” was released on All Day I Dream a few months ago and “Lasting” is our second one from the collab batch.

Flowers on Monday: We had the draft of “True” which we felt would be perfect for a collaboration with Double Touch, I think that’s how it all started. Guess it was a pretty good decision 🙂

WWD: Where did you find inspiration from this project? Was there a particular moment, sound, or thing that sparked it? 

Double Touch:  This track actually started off as one of our first ever demos from a few years ago.  We had a rough idea in a demo but we knew it wasn’t ready to release so it just sat on our computer for years.  Then we thought it could be a great track to revisit when we were looking for ideas to collaborate with Flowers on Monday.  We sent them the stems and we all worked on a new version for 2022.

Flowers on Monday: We were blown away when we first heard the raw version of “Lasting”. The first things that came to our head were handpan and vocals which would be a perfect additional touch to the draft. The vocals were meant to be background vocals but pushing them to the front was a great idea from Mark and Van-Anh.

WWD: Looks like you guys have been touring lately – what has been your favorite party to play recently?

Double Touch:  We had so many memorable events over the past few months.   If we had to pick one I would say the All Day I Dream Festival in California would be our stand-out.  We met so many of the other ADID artists for the first time there (including Flowers on Monday!), and the whole weekend was full of amazing music and people.

Flowers on Monday: The All Day I Dream Festival definitely was something else. Seeing all these great artists (including Double Touch!) was a great experience!

WWD: What would you say was your ‘song of the summer’, either to play out or listen to at home?

Double Touch:  “Lune” by Tim Green would probably be our track of the Summer.  We heard Lee Burridge play it quite a lot at gigs and then we finally got our hands on the promo to play at our gigs.  It’s such a feel-good song which brings the endless Summer vibes!  🙂

Flowers on Monday: The tracks Amonita released this year were amazing! I think “Love is the Answer” was on repeat the most at home and on the CDJs.

WWD: What has been the proudest release of your career thus far? 

Double Touch:  I think our Infinite Nocturne EP on Trybesof would be the one.   We definitely played those tracks the most at our gigs over the past year as it really lets us play our main instruments – Piano and Drums at our live shows.  

Flowers on Monday: As you know our career started under a different name. The “Elephants” EP which was released on ADID gained a lot of support. Bonobo played it in his Boiler Room Set which was a big honor to us. We’re really proud of the tracks we produced with Double Touch. They’re a great combination of musically and danceable tracks.

WWD: How did you guys get into electronic music? When did it become more of a career rather than a hobby?

Double Touch:  (Mark) – I was always into live bands until I was in my early twenties and discovered some House Music that was a blend of live instruments and electronic beats (the Lazy Dog compilation albums).  I would play percussion with DJs at the local bars/clubs in Sydney, then started to DJ and Produce a few years later.  (Van-Anh) – both my parents are musicians (Mum, an opera singer and Dad, a classical guitarist), so I was introduced to music very very early in life. I started playing the piano at 13 months old (before I could walk and talk) and classical music was my upbringing. It wasn’t until I went to school and was exposed to other genres of music that I ended up writing and playing other styles of music, subsequently working with writers and producers of other genres. 

Flowers on Monday: (Chris) I always tried different instruments but never stayed with one. Only as I saw one of my friends DJing, I knew this will be my musical journey. I was pretty nerdy with how everything works and tried different styles until I came to Organic House. (Stefan) My father was a big influence to me. He was also a musician and teached me how to play the guitar. Music was always the topic in my life. In 2003 I founded my own music school where I teached young souls the spirit of music. It was about eighteen years ago when I started to combine the instruments I play with electronic music.

WWD: What’s going on in the studio these days? Any upcoming projects we should have on the radar?

Double Touch:   We were away from our studio for a few months so we haven’t been able to work on too much new music recently.   We just put the finishing touches on our next ADID EP which will be out in December.  This is more of our chilled/dreamy style with Reigan featuring on a few new tracks.   Then we will be spending a lot of time in the studio over the next few months to write some more of our “club” style tracks for our next release on Trybesof.  There will be some more collabs with Flowers on Monday coming in 2023  which we wrote in the same batch as “Lasting” and “True”, as well as some collabs with other special secret artists which you will hear about soon!  

Flowers on Monday: We worked a lot on new music and just finished some demos which we will send out soon. Our remix for Jordan Arts, which is an incredible musician, will be out on House Music With Love in November. Also looking forward to the other collab tracks with Double Touch. Hope to present them to you soon.

WWD: Thanks again for chatting with us, so happy to have this music coming on the label. We hope to see you again soon. 

Double Touch:   Thank you for having us!  🙂

Flowers on Monday: It was a pleasure, thanks a lot!

Connect with Double Touch
Soundcloud – https://www.soundcloud.com/doubletouchofficial
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/doubletouchofficial
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/doubletouchofficial/

Connect with Flowers on Monday
Soundcloud – https://soundcloud.com/flowersonmonday
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/flowersonmonday
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/flowers_on_monday/

Connect with XYZ – https://linktr.ee/wwd.xyz
Stream releases in full via Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2uDd07z

Double Touch & Flowers On Monday – Lasting [TOR036]
Release Date – 10.28.22
Stream – https://xyzlabel.lnk.to/Lasting