Music production is usually the last obstacle musicians face when determining if they are "real playas" or hacks. In electronic music, the natural progression is usually to go from DJ-ing to music production, which tends to quickly weed out the serious musicians from the record collectors who just know how to match beats.

Carlos Mendoza and Peter Christianson of the Seattle DJ/production duo LawnChair Generals let their actions speak for themselves. They have a track, "Sweet Nothing," out on Viva! Records that is being rotated in house sets across the country, as well as an upcoming release on Westbound, and a remix with Rick Preston of an Alexander East track. These guys aren't playin' around.

Carlos and Peter started making music together about a year and a half ago when they were both working at Platinum Records here in Seattle. Both were individually involved in music in other cities before eventually settling here. I asked Carlos and Peter about the challenge of enduring fluctuations in such an unprecedented music scene. "I have a respect for anyone who survives a scene's natural attrition--in this type of music where you mainly work alone, you must be able to wear all the hats," said Peter, adding, "Things have gotten a lot better in the last five or six years. There was a time when it was a lot harder to play cutting-edge music by totally unknown people like us. A track that you pull off the wall or computer--you can get away with playing entire sets of that now, whereas six or seven years ago you couldn't."

Seeing Carlos and Peter together gives insight as to why electronic production duos like Kruder & Dorfmeister, Phreaks, Deep Dish, and Daft Punk are more apparent in music these days--you can take your production and creativity as far as you want to take a friendship. It's always fun and inspiring to have someone along. NICOLAE WHITE

Catch LawnChair Generals' set at Flammable (Re-bar, 1114 Howell St, 233-9873) Sun May 26.

nicolae@thestranger.com