The success of German trance duo Cosmic Gate over the course of nearly fifteen years and six albums suggests the existence of some grand plan for world domination.
But as the impeccably polite Stefan Bossems, aka DJ Bossi, explains, it’s a laissez-faire approach that has seen Cosmic Gate rise to the top of the trance scene.
“We like to say it’s not like following a recipe,” says Bossi from Dusseldorf, where he’s enjoying some down time before some UK dates and a forthcoming tour of South Africa. “It’s not like cooking. We start and at the end we see how it tastes; hopefully it’s tasty and delicious.”
Bossi and partner Claus Terhoeven, aka Nic Chagall, have been serving up “tasty and delicious” trance music since the late 1990s, and it’s fair to claim that their formula of having no formula has paid huge dividends.
They’ve remixed the likes of Ferry Corsten, Armin van Buuren, Deadmau5, Paul van Dyk, Markus Schulz and Robbie Rivera. They’ve worked closely with Tiesto and released numerous cuts on his Black Hole Recordings, including 2011’s sixth LP, ‘Wake Your Mind’. Now, in 2013, as the American press increasingly label everything with a synth and wobbly bassline ‘EDM’, Cosmic Gate are using their latest LP to continue their subtle repositioning, to the uninitiated at least, as more than just a trance act.
“[While] we’re seen as trance, we don’t see ourselves as a typical trance act,” Bossi explains. “We came from the harder side of trance … and now, what is it? It’s a mixture of progressive, house influences; we don’t really care how the music is branded.”
So, while the pounding bass and driving rhythms typical of 2002’s ‘No More Sleep’ and 2009’s ‘Sign Of The Times’ remain on ‘Wake Your Mind’, Cosmic Gate are using vocals like those of Australian Emma Hewitt to produce a more accessible, progressive sound which is seeing them enjoy some commercial success around the world.
Australia-bound again next month for a second bite at Future Music Festival following their maiden performance there two years ago, Bossi is full of praise for Australian audiences.
“We always love coming to Australia because we have a feeling the Australian crowds are very open. If we’re playing the same stage after a techno act … it’s still kind of the same crowd on the dancefloor. This is what we like – people that are open-minded ... We see you guys and your scene as very happy.”
Routinely booked to play massive venues in the new frontier of electronic music – the United States – Bossi says he and Nic’s experiences playing at the likes of Marquee in Las Vegas have provided them with a more balanced view of EDM as opposed to the populist, and often wayward, view of EDM as a credibility killer.
“The American press needed a word and this is more like [what] Europe called techno in the ‘90s; now it’s called EDM,” he explains. “It’s flooding the world, and it seems to be that the US – and LA and Vegas – [that] are really the centre of it.
“You can see it as negative, that music is way more commercial. On the other side, you can see it as positive – that a lot of new people are getting into electronic music in general. We see it actually as something positive. For us there is not commercial and underground music. There is only good and bad music and we try to make our pick at playing good music for the people and producing good music for the people.”
Cosmic Gate play Future Music Festival at Doomben Racecourse Saturday Mar 2.
