Tritonal is a trance DJ duo composed of Chad Cisneros, 32, and Dave Reed, 24. The pair, who made the Top 100 list of international DJs (No. 65) in a recent issue of DJ Mag, returns home to Austin, playing Emo’s East on Saturday night. The show is presented by Disco Donnie and Nightculture and includes other global DJs. Co-producer Toddy B helped us compose some questions for this pair whose mostly instrumental music is easily accessible via the Internet. The answers were edited mostly for length.
Chad Cisneros: Growing up in Texas, electronic dance music was such an underground genre. … When I first heard it, I fell in love. I was introduced to the music at various parties in Austin, Houston and Dallas in college. I was studying business and economics at the University of Texas and started taking audio engineering, music theory, sound design and synthesis courses to learn more about music and how to produce tracks professionally.
In the late ’90s, techno music—as it was called—was stigmatized by drugs. I hated this aspect about it and always felt there were aspects of house, trance and techno that were superior to the violent rap and hip hop of the day. During this period, laws were passed that made throwing these events known as “raves” tough, and the music had to find its place within the clubs. It’s taken over a decade for dance music to really make a comeback in the U.S. …
It wasn’t too long after college that I met Dave on a sound forum online and we realized we had similar tastes in music, production styles and career goals and we started the Tritonal collaboration. We’re just approaching our fifth year of the project and have reached some amazing milestones.
Dave Reed: I actually grew up in the Washington D.C. area, which is where I fell in love with dance music. I was always the oddball out around my friends. … But I would listen to it constantly — so much that the very first tracks I’ve ever heard stick with me to this day. For me, I didn’t really grow up in the scene, but more so, around it. I grew up listening for the pure enjoyment of the feeling that it gave me; I was so infatuated with melody, the sound design and just the overall compositions of the tracks themselves!
My family was also very much involved in music while I was growing up; my mom loved to sing and my father had been a radio DJ for 10 years, and my sister now teaches piano lessons. With all this, I noticed that when any piece of music had a good melody or a hook that I remembered, I felt how many melodies of my own I had zipping around in my head and wanted to learn how to make these compositions fall into place!
Throughout my years of high school up into college and onwards, I had become heavily involved in producing and writing dance music; always reading books on producing, programming, sound design and synthesizer use.
At first it was just a hobby and fortunately now has turned into such a blessing. When Chad and I met online, we were always yapping each other’s ears off on what we were working on and designing. When we decided to do the Tritonal collaboration, it was such a big part of both our growth. …
What were your first experiences with Austin nightlife?
Chad Cisneros: I was a college student and my first experiences, like so many kids, were down on Sixth street. The whole mainstream, Top 40 music did nothing for me, so unlike so many of my peers, I didn’t opt in to the sorority or frat culture. … I spent time working on DJ mixes, producing little tracks and songs and trying to figure out how to make my sound full and unique. …
When Dave and I started Tritonal, we went after the industry on two fronts. The first front was the production front. We produced like maniacs, licensing tracks with labels around the world. The second front was the DJ front, which locally is always a political one. We knew that the key was making hit records, but that didn’t stop us from hitting the streets at night to help local promoters pass out fliers and promote events. …
Dave Reed: After I had moved down to Austin from D.C., I never had experienced the nightlife before. It was so cool to DJ live at these small events with Chad. Even though there were very little people, the experience was life changing in such a wonderful way. I had a whole new aspect in mind on what the scene was like and it was humbling and motivating all at the same time. Chad and I definitely worked our way hard from the ground up; handing out fliers multiple times a week to promote shows, making the DJ mixes, talking to club owners about us deejaying, then going to back to the studio to produce tracks during the day nonstop.
Along the way we met many big acts such as Markus Schulz, Armin van Buuren and Ferry Corsten. It really wasn’t until one of our gigs in Austin, when we opened for Corsten, that we started turning heads. We opened with a pretty hard set, met Ferry and slipped him one of our tracks, “Essence of Kea,” and he signed it to his label that week!
Which tracks of yours got you recognized and how did “Air Up There” play a role in that? When you started the show, did you ever imagine you’d be as successful as you’ve been?
Chad Cisneros: The first tracks that we saw really make an impact globally were ‘Piercing Quiet,’ ‘Essence of Kea,’ and ‘Let Solitude.’ It was pretty much overnight that bookings from places like Moscow, Australia, Hawaii and Asia started rolling in after these records hit. We started “Air Up There” as a monthly show initially, to give us an outlet to showcase the tracks we felt were the best at the time. It also acted as a filter for the way we sorted through all the new music we received. We never imagined it would grow into what it is today and are so thankful to our Tritonians around the Globe who have made this possible.
What made you decide to celebrate the 100th episode in Austin?
Chad Cisneros: We’ve traveled the world a few times over in the past couple of years and as we were approaching this huge milestone of 100 episodes of “Air Up There,” we really wanted to celebrate it where it all began—in our hometown of Austin. We want friends, family and our loyal fans to be able to observe this occasion with us, as they’re the reason why we’ve gotten so far in our careers. … So it’s only fitting that we bring it back full circle to Austin.
How will Air Up There 100 at Emo’s stand out from your past shows?
Dave Reed: We’re going all out for this one! We don’t usually travel with much of our own production, but for this show we’ll have LED panels, amazing lighting, dancers and a photobooth for fans to take pictures in front of. We’ve also brought along some of our favorite acts that will be performing that night. Super8 & Tab (Finland) and Kyau & Albert (Germany) are two duos that influenced us heavily as we were starting out and we’re honored to call them our friends and colleagues now. Will Holland, an amazing producer and DJ from the UK who also happens to be our label boss at Enhanced Recordings, will be opening up the night. And last but not least, our songbird, singer-songwriter Cristina Soto, who has been there with us since nearly the beginning, will perform several songs with us live.