TRISTATE - Letting the Sounds Breathe

www.facebook.com/tristatelive

Welcome back to Koh Phangan, so what do you two love about this place?

Markus - I would say the relaxed atmosphere, last year we brought a little mobile studio with us and was just hanging out here for four weeks making music and it was very relaxed but at the same time a very productive holiday. So this why we decided to do it again this year.

George - The weather, the sunshine and the cheap beer.

So tell us about Tristate…
Tristate is a project that we started for fun around eight years ago with creative breaks in between. We were toying around with sounds and different styles and so after maybe three years of break we relaunched the project in 2014 and since then our sound developed in a more mature way.

One thing led to another and so we are playing gigs all around and constantly trying to evolve our music so it doesn’t start to bore ourselves.

Why the name?
It’s difficult to explain it, in digital electronic technology it’s a definition, we made the name then found out the meaning of it…

‘In digital electronics three-state, tri-state, or 3-state logic allows an output port to assume a high impedance state in addition to the 0 and 1 logic level’

This pretty much explains our music as we don’t want to limit ourselves to one style.

So explain the style of what you do...
Markus - It’s difficult to explain...

George -  I can tell you the direction we’re looking into is ‘open air’ and calm, although driving, it has to have this calmness inside and the sounds have to have enough space to breath. The last thing I need in music is stress.

Marcus - Good point, people keep asking this question and want to know whether it’s Psytrance, Progressive or Full on that we’re doing, and we actually never think about a style, we do what fits at the point in the studio.

George - But it’s definitely made for big open air venues.

So what backgrounds in terms of music do you come from?
George - Musically, I have always liked music but really got into it at the age of seventeen in school. I bought myself two cdj players and started off straight away with Psy Trance, as when I heard it the first time it was love at first sound, it not at a party, it was by chance. I heard something on the internet whilst searching for something different.

Djing very quickly transcended into production I and have been doing it ever since.

Markus - I would say I’m a very open person when it comes to music, I was and still am listening to a lot of Hip Hop, Classical music, Jazz and Pop music.

I think you can find good music in every style but what concerns my musical background is playing the piano a bit and the story of where I am now is the typical way of djing and then going into producing.

You are playing Blackmoon, are you looking forward to this?
George - Definitely. It’s a beach party and that alone makes it special for me

Why do you like beach parties and what will you guys bring to the dancefloor?
George - We’re from Austria, people who don’t live here will always think beach parties are special.

Markus - We will definitely try to bring our own flavour and make it somehow a bit different concerning the type of music since we are doing own style of music.

Where have you been playing over the last year and what have been your standout gigs?
Markus - Definitely for me a gig that is beyond the regular schedule is Paradise Winter Festival in our hometown of Vienna which took place just last weekend actually, and of course Flow Festival in the summertime.

George - I would totally agree with his choice but also The Experience Festival was also an ‘experience’ and the other smaller gigs as well.

Halloween in Vienna we played alongside Liquid Soul, it was a dancefloor where I thought the sounds had enough space to breath, I loved it.

The smaller gigs glue these things together, they were also very much fun but in a different way. We could be closer to the audience, with big dancefloors you are a bit more separate but with smaller ones it is more intimate.

Markus - Sometimes a crowd is harder to ‘get’ on a smaller dancefloor than at big raves.

You say the ‘sound has room to breath’ explain what you mean by this….
Markus - For me, Psytrance is large scale music, I really love the feeling when entering a big party where you have space and the music as well. Psy Trance works with a lot of delays and atmospheres and that needs space to get the whole effect.

George - An observation we make is that time runs differently at a party and on a big dancefloor than it does in the studio at home, that’s what we mean by large scale music.

We often have to imagine, whilst in the studio, how it’s going to be blown up a few scales, as I said, time runs differently on the dancefloor so we’re obviously not gonna push as many sounds and ideas in as this would be too much for an audience and ourselves when played out loud. I think it’s the principle of minimalism on music, we all know the bigger the dancefloor the more minimal the music gets, this is what we mean by breathing.

I don’t mean the music is in any way more primitive than say, music which evolves in a faster, quicker way but we have to face the fact that Psy Trance is really made for the dancefloor, not so much home listening. I believe that most people listen to our music on dancefloor not at home so this is why we create the music with this mental background.

That’s also what I mean by ‘stress’, If you push too many sounds on a large scale then for me, I could listen to it but I would get a headache. It’s about creating waves and vibes and in order to do that we use factors of time and space. The space is given to us from the dancefloor/party and we create the time.

So what will be your main projects for 2016?
Markus - Continuing with what we are doing, making music and trying to maybe do some new collaborations with other artists that we both appreciate

Off the subject a little, how did you two meet?
Marcus - More than eleven years ago at Austria’s largest open air Psytrance festival. George was the, well still is, the older bigger brother of my oldest kindergarten friend and so I knew him before anyway, since kindergarten.

George - We didn’t hang out then, he was a friend of my brother.

Markus - When we met at this party we knew we had a shared interest.

So what do you do on Koh Phangan in your free time?
George - We produce, we brought our equipment with us so we’ll be making some sunshine soaked beach inspired sounds, that’s the plan at least.

Markus - And drinking beer, Singha beer...

So why should people come see you at black moon?
George - We can’t force anyone to have a good time but it’s an invitation.

Markus - The musical background will be there so it’s up to everybody else to have a good time or not.

Any last words for Phanganists?
George - Sabai sabai and enjoy life, it’s short.

Markus - Well said, nothing to add.