DJ LIFE sat down with Cosmic Gate to reflect on the year so far, the thinking behind PERSPECTIVES, and their 25-plus-year career as a duo.
Cosmic Gate’s story has always been one that’s defined by evolution. Now more than two decades into their career partnership, Nic Chagall and Stefan Bossems (aka Bossi) continue to refine and reframe what modern trance can be, pushing their sound forward without losing the emotional core that made them fixtures in the first place.
That familiar ethos is front and center as the pair close out its latest body of work, PERSPECTIVES, a trilogy that reflects both their restless creativity and their reality as touring artists in constant motion.
Released in chapters, PERSPECTIVES is less a single snapshot and more of a moving sequence that’s been shaped by a life of travel, late-night road-testing of new material, and an openness to avoid being defined by one style or genre of electronic music. Across the three EPs, Cosmic Gate has leaned into melodic techno, progressive house, and trance without drawing hard lines between them – instead presenting what they describe as different perspectives on the same emotional language.
Cosmic Gate’s career, since its earliest releases, has seen the group remain a staple within the circuit – and that includes multiple eras of electronic music, a Grammy nomination, landmark albums, and sold-out tours across the world. In 2026, that very momentum is clearly still intact. Fresh off another run of dates on the PERSPECTIVES USA Tour, the trance music titans are already crowd-testing new music, reaffirming that for Cosmic Gate, the connection between studio and stage remains as vital as ever before.
DJ LIFE sat down with Cosmic Gate to reflect on the year so far, the thinking behind PERSPECTIVES, their approach to collaboration and technology, and how a partnership that began by chance has grown into one of dance music’s most enduring duos.
DJ LIFE: How has the start to your year been so far? What’s the rest of the year look like?
Nic Chagall: We kicked off 2026 with the next run of our PERSPECTIVES USA Tour and now we’re looking back on some amazing sold-out shows in Austin, Washington, D.C., San Diego, and Los Angeles! This week we drop the final part of our PERSPECTIVES series. We are already testing new music across our recent dates. We’ve been on tour the past two months, and it feels so good to see live what we have been working on for so long.
DJ LIFE: Your latest EP, Perspectives EP3, closes a trilogy. When did you realize this project needed three chapters instead of one cohesive release?
Bossi: We already released our last albums/EPs in two chapters, and with all the touring as DJs, being more on the road rather than in the studio, releasing the album in parts makes our life easier, as we can already release a selection in segments to the fans. Plus, leaning more into tracks allows us to give snapshots to the fans across a section of time that may work for playlists and gives each part its own identity. PERSPECTIVES became a trilogy of three EPs, as we wanted to roll out the album in even smaller parts due to the reasons we mentioned, but we are always adjusting and playing around with new ideas.
DJ LIFE: When you think about all three EPs, what threads do you feel connect them?
Bossi: The idea of PERSPECTIVES was to present well the different perspectives on trance music! These days you don’t have clear genres anymore; the genres blend, and if you go to Beatport you are overwhelmed by that long, long list thinking, “Where does this track actually belong?” We love that, actually, as we always try to evolve our sound and get inspired by the next generation. We feel the PERSPECTIVES albums overall give a lot of different tracks, but every track still has that Cosmic Gate signature of driving beats and touching melodies and vocals.
DJ LIFE: On the EP, you blend trance, melodic techno, and melodic house seamlessly. When you’re in the studio today, what’s your approach? Do you still find it necessary to stay within the territories of a certain genre?
Chagall: No, as said before, we always try to evolve and get inspired by new music and movements. Being around for 26 years now, it would be pretty boring if our new album would still sound like the very first one!
DJ LIFE: With several collabs on the EP, how do you prefer working with collaborators – in person or virtually?
Chagall: Unfortunately, all virtually. We live in different cities across different countries, plus the weekly touring makes it difficult for us to meet in the studio. But thanks to all the new techniques and digital ease and availability for remote collaboration, it’s so easy to work like this these days.
DJ LIFE: How about when it’s just the two of you. Do you get to work in the same space often or do you typically work virtually when you’re not together for gigs?
Bossi: We only see each other on the weekend, as we are not living close to each other. So, it’s all virtually, but we found a great way of remote collaboration after many years being musical “brothers.”
DJ LIFE: What’s your DAW and studio set-up looking like these days?
Chagall: We are working with Logic and an Apple laptop, which can travel with us around the world. For final mixdown and mastering, we go into a studio, as we feel it’s hard to master on headphones and we always want the best quality with the final result.
DJ LIFE: Any new gear, equipment, plug-ins, sample packs, etc. that you’ve been most fond of lately?
Chagall: I think we use the same stuff as everybody else, mainly [Xfer Records] Serum and [Reveal Sound] Spire.
DJ LIFE: You’ve been part of multiple electronic music eras. What are your thoughts on the current state of the industry? What about where it’s headed?
Bossi: We love to see that genres are blending and trance sounds are lately to be found in so many other genres. Tiësto is playing trance sets again and giving the genre some – in our opinion – deserved glances. On the other hand, we see clubs are suffering a lot from all the big events and festivals. The superstar DJs outbid themselves with bigger shows and production, and DJ fees are higher than ever, so we hope that clubs will not get forgotten, as they are the heart of everything, where new music trends and new talents are born. So don’t forget to support your local clubs and artists!
DJ LIFE: How do you feel about the use of AI in music? Do you have any concerns about the future of the music industry at large?
Chagall: As you said before, we have been part of multiple electronic music eras. We went from physical vinyl/CD to downloads, from downloads to streaming, and every time people worried about the progress and the unknown. As we survived all of this and found our place and way of working in the next era, we feel we will do so with AI as well. Of course, we all have to get used to it and some rules have to be made, but like we managed to handle illegal downloads or YouTube agreements, artistry will prevail. We always try to think positive.
DJ LIFE: Your Grammy nomination marked a huge milestone. Did that recognition change anything for you guys personally and professionally?
Bossi: Good question! Personally, we don’t think so – we are still the same [laughs]. Of course, it’s an absolute honor to belong to the few artists who have been nominated, and we never thought that the Academy would recognize or consider our work. So we are very proud of it!
DJ LIFE: After decades of DJing together as a duo, do you approach a set differently now, as opposed to, say, 10 years ago?
Chagall: In regards to the music in our sets, yes. These days our sets are the most diverse ever; we play deep house, progressive, melodic house, tech-house, melodic techno, and trance. Long sets can start with 124 BPM and can go up to 134 BPM sometimes. But we still don’t pre-prepare sets. We always know the first records we aim to go in with and, after that, we go with the flow of the night and feel the crowd out.
DJ LIFE: In what ways have your DJ and personal relationships changed over the years?
Bossi: Over the years our relationship got better and better. You must know we were not that close when we started Cosmic Gate. We met by coincidence in a studio, our friends left, we started jamming, and ended up with “The Drums,” our first single, and the rest is history. So saying that, we have grown together over the years, and the longer we toured, the better we got to know each other. We have a very similar taste in music, which might be one reason why we have been going for so many years together as a unit.
DJ LIFE: Looking back, which of your original tracks, remixes or albums felt like the biggest creative risk at the time, but ended up being one of your smartest career moves?
Bossi: Hmmmm… We would say our MOSAIIK album. When COVID came and we couldn’t play live and it felt like we were all banned from dancefloors, the big peak-time anthems were simply not wanted anymore. We saw this as a way to pivot, and it took us the opportunity to release “Blame” and go way deeper before we started live streaming, also with our YouTube sets, and then the MOSAIIK sound took us on a completely new and amazing journey. Without the pandemic, we might not have made that move.
DJ LIFE: If you had to choose only five Cosmic Gate original tracks or remixes to include in your future DJ sets, which would be your go-to cuts and why?
Chagall & Bossi: Oh, that’s a tough one! Our tracks are like our children, so that’s hard to pick only five! If we must: 1) “Exploration of Space,” of course, because there is no Cosmic Gate set without this track; 2) “Nothing To Hide” from the before-mentioned MOSAIIK album; 3) “am2pm”; 4) our “Only Road” remix for Gabriel & Dresden; and 5) “Fire Wire.” These might be the tracks we are most known for and still have in most of our sets – the biggest fan favorites, we would say! What do you think?
DJ LIFE: Good stuff… How did some of your classic songs get their titles and themes? Most notably “Exploration of Space” and “Fire Wire”…
Chagall: Ha-ha, great question! People always think there is a cool story behind it, but each track is different. “Exploration Of Space” – that’s easy, because we found that vocal sample and then the name was clear and came from a very organic idea. “Fire Wire”… well, that is a pretty unsexy story that I don’t know if we have told anybody! We were in the studio, had that track finished, and everybody said, “This track needs a vocal sample!” Back in the day, we worked only with spoken vocals like in “The Drums” or “Exploration,” but we had no good sample handy. So Bossi was playing around with a cable in his hands which had the new “fire-wire” plug. Bossi went to the microphone and said: “Fire wire!” The rest is history again.
DJ LIFE: Manifesting your future: Where is Cosmic Gate five years from now?
Bossi: Still making music and touring around the world. As long as people stream our music, come see us at our shows, and watch our streams, we are going to continue what we can do best: make music.
*Editors note: Since the time this original article was published in the February issue of DJ LIFE’s magazine, it has since been announced that Cosmic Gate will be moving forward as a solo project (Nic Chagall.)