At a SubtleSound.wav concert last winter at Wooly’s, cdisiac, right, gathered a crowd for a dance party full of amapiano, reggaeton and more. Photo: Andrae Steed
Charles Walker III was born and raised in Des Moines. The DJ better known as cdisiac is now 21 and has been performing for almost a decade. For two years now, the dance parties he calls “SubtleSound.wav” events have popped up all over the city, promoted on Instagram under a simple tagline: “Creating an intimate space and bringing global dance music to a dance floor near you.”
The following Q&A has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
How did you come up with your name?
There’s a Brandy album called “Afrodisiac,” and I thought that was such a cool name. I liked the way it sounded and the play on words. I tried out the name, replacing the first half with my first initial, C, to create “cdisiac” and to reference my love for music. I wasn’t sure if I liked it at first, but soon my friends started calling me that, and other nicknames based on that, and so it stuck.
When did you start DJing?
I’ve always loved music. I knew this was something I wanted to do, really since I was 11 years old. That’s when my parents got me my first DJ controller. It wasn’t the best or most high tech, but it did the job and I loved it. My dad downloaded, like, 50 songs on it and set it all up for me and said, “Here you go: Make music.” And that was it. I got my first gig at 13, at a motorcycle club. That was the first time I was ever paid to DJ, and I remember thinking, “This is awesome.”
What is SubtleSound.wav?
It’s split between three people: me, B.Well (Billy Weathers) and Borg (Tobias Tyler). Borg does all of our graphics, he films at events and does videos and the posters and stuff. Billy finds venues, talks to people and makes those community connections; he’s like the community liaison for PR and marketing. When people see his face, they know it’s something great. And then everything else is me: doing promo and getting people out to the sets, collaborating with other DJs and creating the performance part.
That’s something I’m really hoping to get more into this year: bringing in new DJs from other cities around the country. I like the idea of putting people on to new music. A lot of local DJs, they’re great — don’t get me wrong — but they only play like hard EDM, like the hard rave stuff, and that’s not the style I want SubtleSound to be. I want to introduce people to Afrobeats, reggaeton, amapiano (a fusion of jazz, soul and South African kwaito), baile funk (Brazilian hip-hop and electro-funk), French house music, all of that. I want to bring in people who own that music space and share it with the Des Moines crowd.
I’m also a big advocate for making these shows accessible. I hope I don’t ever have to charge more than $20 for tickets, unless some venue fee is super crazy. I really want everyone who wants to come out to be able to come and have a good time and feel like they’re part of a dance community. That’s really what SubtleSound emphasizes: being together with your people and having fun.
What’s your biggest goal for the future?
I’m really focused on building this brand and making this into something. I think it could be something big. I’d love to turn SubtleSound.wav into a festival, and have a whole bunch of artists from all over playing their music.
More short term, I’m working on planning our next shows. (The shows are named chronologically. This past winter, for example, [008] took place at Wooly’s.) I really want [010] to be outside somewhere this summer.
cdisiac’s summer sound
Ready for your summer playlist? Take it from DJ cdisiac. “These are songs I’ve had in heavy rotation lately, and they capture that summer feeling.”
• “ATL Sh*t” by Stefan Ringer
• “Boogie Oogie Oogie” by A Taste of Honey
• “controllin” by ESTA, featuring Arin Ray
• “Hold On” by Kaytranada, featuring Dawn Richard
• “Vivid Dreams” by Kaytranada, featuring Tiber
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