Last Updated: October 2023-

Cosmic Gate is a German DJ duo with a musical career spanning over 20 years. Constantly dropping bangers, the veterans have now released their 13th album dubbed “Mosaiik Chapter One”. In this Funktasy Spotlight, we dive into the making of this album with Nic and Bossi themselves.

What would you say is a typical daily routine for Cosmic Gate?

If there is one thing for certain, there is no real daily routine for us. Even more when we are in the middle of touring, which, fortunately, since the last few months we are doing again. We couldn’t be happier about that! When we are home of course there is a kind of routine. Like, get up, have a coffee, check the news, and later on in the day work on new music, or the radio show. Or answer interview questions like today! Still though we do not have certain times that are ‘blocked for studio’ for example. We feel its important to just be ready. Creativity doesn’t happen automatically, so writing new music can happen at 2 pm, or 4 am in the morning. That’s one of the big perks of not being on a 9 to 5. Boy, are we are lucky!

You have a new album out, “MOSAIIK”, what were the motivations behind it and what lies behind the name of the album?

Somehow after our anniversary album “Forward Ever Backward Never”, it did not just feel like just a new LP, but more like the start in a new era. There were some signs that our fans were as ready as we were. I mean accepting of a deeper, more progressed sound and production direction. No one told us we needed to do this change. We very naturally felt this from within, as we’ve always followed our intuitions over the years. When the clubbing world was pretty much severed from dancefloors last March, that circumstance gave us even more artistic latitude. Thus “MOSAIIK”s music making became less symmetric and floor-focused, and all the more enriching for it. As weird as it sounds, we somehow became even freer in our work, while life outside was actually the opposite. We tried to take the worst of possible circumstances and turn it into more of a chance and less of an obstacle. After a fair while, we laid out all of “MOSAIIK”s ideas, drafts and demos, and quickly realized that there was so much material, we needed to split it into two again (as we did before with the ‘Materia’ series).

Although Cosmic Gate is a trance duo and most of this album is considered trance, some songs like “Feel It” and “Nothing To Hide” borders on the progressive house side. Are you guys trying to integrate new genres to your sound?

We certainly always have integrated other genres in our mostly considered trance songs, and indeed, this time, as you are suggesting, we are leaning even more toward the progressive and deeper side of things. We feel quite a lot has changed during COVID, for both our fans and ourselves. So we quite automatically adapted these vibes further into our production. Art and artists have to develop, and we feel we did adapt, but most importantly, we did still always have our Cosmic Gate signature handwriting written over the tracks, and we couldn’t be more happy with the reception of the singles and the album overall.

What was your purpose when integrating the widely used sample vocals in the song “Your Mind”?

Sometimes a vocal might be widely used, and you are absolutely correct in that. Creative sampling though means to take vocals out of a context, and we are positive that no one’s arranged in the way we did on “Your Mind”. We simply loved the original and fortunately its creators gave us permission to use it right away. Thanks a lot for that fellas!

Tell us about the creation and production method of the album. Do you guys work in the box, analogue or hybrid?

After working fully analog in the early years, sitting in a studio surrounded by nothing but machines, samplers and synths, this has really changed during the last let’s say 10 years. Within that time though, most of our sound design has become digital. Simply, a considerable amount of our work gets done when being on the road, on flights, in hotels. Some analog mastering equipment is then used at the end of the album.

What song of the album would you guys’ think is your favourite and why?

To be quite honest, we tend to never answer this question, simply, as we’re not able to. It’s like asking parents to point out one of their kids is above the others. It’s impossible to choose. All the tracks are our creations and mean a lot. All that matters to us in the end, is that our fans, or new listeners that have not heard of us before, hopefully find some tracks they like, or maybe even love. They put them in their favourite playlist or introduce them to their friends. Then our time in the studio was well spent and we could not be any happier.

This album is subtitled as “Chapter One.” Are you guys planning a follow up album or what can we expect next from Cosmic Gate?

Oh absolutely! Just like with “Materia”, we plan to release a Chapter 2 of “MOSAIIK”. The reason is pretty simple. After a while of working on the first demos, bits and pieces, as mentioned before, we realized quickly there would be too much material we were collecting to release all in one. Chapter Two is well in the making and wanders even deeper in the footsteps of the first. Maybe come check out one of our shows and try to catch a glimpse of those tunes very shortly!

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