5 Minutes With... Cosmic Gate - Data Transmission

German duo and brothers in sound, Nic Chagall and Bossi, have been producing music together as Cosmic Gate for over fifteen years now and have evolved into one of Germany’s most consistently successful Trance acts. They’ve sold out arenas in some of the biggest cities in the world, rocked the decks at a number of electronic music festivals and have six studio albums and thirteen DJ mixes under their belts. Now, in step with their Wake Your Mind radio show’s first 50th milestone, they have just unveiled a new mix album concept: Wake Your Mind Sessions. This proverbial triple threat seamlessly combines the highlights of their DJ sets, radio show and new music premiere platform as one. I caught up with the two boys to find out a bit more about the mix album and their thoughts on the future of the Wake Your Mind Sessions concept, along with their plans for the rest of the year.

First things first, how are you both?

Nice to talk to you as well! We are very good, thank you. We had a wonderful time at the shows in Tel Aviv, then we played at Ministry of Sound in London and now we’re on to Germany, so it’s been a busy few days on the road.

Sounds great! You recently returned from ASOT 700 in Utrecht, which I had the pleasure of attending – was the show as awesome as you were hoping it would be?

We actually thought that this year’s ASOT Utrecht was very special! The crowd for us was the best we’d experienced in years. Sometimes DJs have to push a crowd, but this year the crowd was just going all by itself. We had an absolute blast up there! Thanks to everyone that partied with us in Utrecht, we’re already looking forward to 2016!

 What else have you been up to so far this year?

We have been touring our album Start to Feel, working on some remixes and own club mixes for the tracks on the album and on top of all that, we’ve started compiling and mixing our new mix compilation series, Wake Your Mind Sessions 1, which came out on March 13^th.

 Yes, I was very excited when I heard the news about this mix album – can you tell us a bit more about it?

After our label WYM Records and WYM Radio, we thought it was time to extend the brand further and do a new DJ mix CD. Our last mix under the name ‘Back To Back’ was a few years ago now and we thought WYM Sessions was simply the perfect adjustment. WYMS 001 is a double mix/CD. Mix 1 starts deeper and more progressive, slowly building things up whereas CD/Mix 2 is more like a mainstage set, more sing-a-long vocals and hands in the air energy, while still retaining the build up. If you like our DJ sets, we think WYM Sessions will be perfect for you.

So what provoked you to release it now?

After the release of our artist album, ‘Start to Feel’, we felt it was a good time to make a statement from the DJ side again, to show others what our sets are like and basically give people the chance to have us ‘DJ’ in their car or living room in time for spring and Miami Ultra week.

How did you begin the selection process for this album? It must have been tough no doubt!

Actually it’s harder for us to find good music than to have too much to choose from. We are both pretty hard to convince with a lot of music and finding tracks that fit our taste is not that easy. That’s why we prefer to have good music on it instead of only brand new music or names, names, names! The quality is the deciding factor for us. The fit of our style and the flow of the mix is what counts.

Agreed. So what are each of your personal favourite tracks on there?

Pfft! Now that is hard to say! We sure love I’ve Got The Power by Alex di Stefano and our own track Yai (Here we go Again), with the brilliant new vocals from JES. In general though, we prefer the listener to make his or her own mind up and find and pick their own personal favourites.

We certainly will! What’s the future of the Wake Your Mind Sessions do you think?

The plan is to give an update of our DJ sound pretty regularly from now on. So WYMS 002 is planned for sometime next year, but when exactly depends largely on when we release a new artist album, as that should come first.

Can we expect to hear any other new releases from Cosmic Gate in 2015?

Yes, absolutely! Firstly, there will be more releases coming that you know from Start to Feel – we’ll be introducing new remixes and club mixes, etc. We have also started to work on fresh material already, so watch this space!

Do you have anything to add to your avid fan base?

Thank you for the support, and we’ll see you guys in the UK at quite a few festivals in the summer, EDC and Creamfields to mention a couple. We’re massively looking forward to those!You can now purchase Wake Your Mind Sessions 1 from iTunes. Connect with Cosmic Gate: