INTERVIEW: Trystan

Trystan hails from London with 15 years experience in the underground music scene, producing and playing under many Alias’s.

His debut track I Jus Want U landed at #1 on Beatport and sets the groundwork for a run of exciting releases, remixes and collaborations coming out soon on Polymath.

Can you tell us a little about your history in electronic music? Where are you from and how did you get into music? I'm London based but have spent a large portion of my life on the road travelling/touring. I played a few musical instruments when I was growing up, guitar, cello and drums. At 17 I went to my first rave and a new door was opened, I bought decks, invested heavily in vinyl and never looked back. I started off playing illegal raves, which progressed to the main circuit of clubs in London (Key/Cross/Turnmills) and then onto international tours which is where I sit currently. How is your sound evolving? What artists and genres do you enjoy mixing right now? Trystan is my new alias, it’s born from a desire to step outside of the box and reach new audiences. Rather than merge this new sound with my current productions I wanted to go fully off-piste with no concerns about keeping it on brand. This is something fresh for me and I’m excited to explore where this new direction will take me both musically and on the gig front. With the massive pause for Covid and coming back to the studio it felt like the perfect time for a new path forward. In terms of influence, I have to say I’ve never been one to follow too closely what other people are doing, there might be odd tracks from artists I like but I’m not watching or following artists. That said there have been some great tracks that did push me towards this new direction. I’ll be making a mix soon with includes the new EP plus some of those influences. How would you like your music to influence your listeners? Ultimately music for me is all about making connections with people, having a shared experience and moving to one rhythm. All I hope for is that the listener might enjoy the music as much as I did when I created it. Has that sound changed a lot in recent years? What is your musical criteria in this first EP as 'Trystan'? This is a totally new sound, I’ve gone through many genres and versions of myself to get to this point. We really tried to come at this from a new angle, after the first track it became apparent the vibe was on and this was going to be something special. We wanted to move towards something fresh and exciting, I’m super happy with the results. How was working with Third Son? How did you two meet? We’ve been working together for a few years now on various projects of mine. Working with Joseph is always super fun and easy, I feel we bounce off each other well and the results confirm this. With the first Trystan EP reaching number 1 on Beatport it's a strong signal we're onto something good. We all know that the digital revolution has affected record sales, but do you think it has affected creativity? I miss having my tracks made up on vinyl, there was something satisfying about putting them up on your wall. However since digital had landed my audience is more extensive, which is ideal when it comes to planning tours. Obviously, illegal downloads are an issue but that’s the other side of the sword it would seem, hopefully, they’ll find a way to stop that in the future. There’s been less money in sales now for a while so for me it’s always been about converting those releases into tours. Can you tell us about your present and future projects? Right now I’m in the middle of a tour of Asia. Next year I’ll be heavily focused on building up this new alias, the next EP is in progress already and I can’t wait to share it with you.

Bedrock/ Suara/ Steyoyoke/ Eleatics/ Disco Halal Dec 2022 Tour Dates: 3rd Dec - Club Zhu, Phuket, Thailand 7th Dec - Jungle Party, Koh Phangan, Thailand 16th Dec - The Warehouse Club, Hanoi, Vietnam 17th Dec - Aura, Saigon, Vietnam 24th Dec - Red Ruby, Bali, Indonesia 29th Dec - Halfmoon Festival, Koh Phangan, Thailand 31st Dec - TBC 1st - Jan - Samsara, Koh Phangan