Cosmos’s Midnight, two brothers whose career is now going through a comforting coming of age story, are now fully present within their musical and creative identities. Even though the journey to finding their sound has been shaped by the success of launching within the golden ‘Soundcloud Era,’ they’ve managed to push beyond the cycle of creating safely structured hits, now developing into their most authentic form yet. Hailing from Australia, Cosmo’s Midnight are known to create some of the catchiest electro-pop hits and they’ve re-emerged with a new track, “Titanic” that amplifies their colorful, confident, larger-than-life essence. Honing in on recreating the infectious groove that was brought within the disco, soul, and funk music of the 60’s/70’s, the Aussie duo is tapping into their authentically curious and carefree nature to deliver tracks that are undeniably exuberant. Read on as they’ve spoken to SPIN about their favorite artists, their current mission, the development of their journey through music and much more. Listen to their new single here.
Who is Cosmos Midnight and what do you stand for?
Cosmo’s Midnight consists of Patrick and I (Cosmo) who are lucky to see eye to eye on our musical styles. We’d like to think we have slowly over time created a musical style that we can call uncompromising and completely our own.
Tell us about your sound – where does your style originate from and what have been your biggest visual, social, and sonic influences?
Our sound is extremely inspired by what we have surrounded ourselves with; disco and funk from the 60s and 70s, turn of the century house and dance music, as well as psych rock and pop ballads! I think our style is a collage of all the music we’ve listened to up until this point. I feel one unconsciously picks apart their favorite tracks and they get absorbed into your writing. Just to name a few artists we love; Nile Rodgers (and chic), Prince, Kool & The Gang, Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, Todd Rundgren. Visually we love Fauvist art, which seems to have made a big resurgence recently (most of our art has been done by Charlotte Mei who often works in that style). We also love ink outline art like those of Takehiko Inoue and Jung Gi Kim. Could go on forever about the art we love haha. Since Pat also draws/paints he’s super into researching those artists and how they work.
Was there a definitive turning point to your success? When did you realize the magnitude of your impact within the industry/community?
I guess you just have a bit of a eureka moment when you see thousands of people all singing the lyrics to a song you wrote in your bedroom. We played a festival in Australia called Falls Festival, and our song ‘History’ had been out for almost a year at that point. We played one of the last sets of the night and the tent was completely packed, spilling out the side and everyone was just going off to our song. Pat and I were blown away and after we just knew something had clicked, a threshold crossed I guess.
Talk to us about a pivotal learning moment in your career.
A massive learning point in our career was to look at what made our music our own. We went through a long period of discovery in what I like to call ‘the Soundcloud Era’ where we made a lot of music I am proud of but wasn’t entirely trying to be original. Rather we were swept up in a wave and a sound that was just so exciting and we got really invested in trying to make those beats. When it came to our first album we really just wanted to make music that we felt we could call our own and after finishing and releasing our last album ‘Yesteryear” I’d like to think we have arrived.
Your most recent album, Yesteryear, is a collection of songs that carry the most authentic songwriting and production of your career thus far – What direction has this project pushed you in and how much influence has this era had on the current projects you’re working on?
Yesteryear was a really affirming album for us. At this point we weren’t really going into the writing process with a clear idea ‘lets make a song like this’ instead we were jamming and feeling the songs out, they were more personal and less curated. Although our music is still definitely pop, we are finishing these tracks with less effort as they are coming from a deeper well of knowledge and inspirations. Not tooting our own horn this has just been a long journey and I feel like only just now have we really hit our stride as songwriters, not just with our own music but with co-writes and everything else music offers.
You just released your new single ’Titanic’ what can you tell us about it and this new era for you.
So Titanic is a track where we truly just banged it out. Everything came together so quickly, I wrote the bass line and then we had a beat. Suddenly Pat was singing a whole topline right off the top of his head. Pat had his first foray into singing properly on our last album so he’s really only been toplining for a year. For him to just come up with this so easily and confidently was super cool to watch. When we write we really like to contrast bright upbeat instrumentals with more depressing hypothetical vignettes. Our lyrics don’t often draw from our own reality but rather situations that could happen and do happen to everyone throughout their lives. Pat responds lyrically just as he does with the keyboard or I do with the guitar. It’s felt out, rather than necessary telling a story we’re trying to cultivate a feel and sensation with the lyrics.
As we’re integrating ourselves back into an open world, do you have any other exciting ventures besides music you have your sights set on?
We’d both love to travel as soon as possible. It feels like we’ve had the last two years ripped away, despite the positive of being able to work on our music alot, it has felt a little stifling to be in the same city let alone the same suburb almost for 2 years. We missed our brother’s wedding in Denmark but would love to travel over to Europe at some point. I have a grand plan of travelling from Morocco into Spain and Portugal before heading along the med through Italy and France, then the Balkans before ending in Turkey and Lebanon. I don’t know when I’ll do it but I will. On a more manageable level though I would love to visit Japan and South Korea again, there’s so much to do there and it’s close enough to Australia for it not be too difficult to find the time to do it. Other than that, music is always in our minds so listening to new tracks and writing new tracks is always on the forefront of our minds.
Is there anything on the horizon that you can share with us?
As Titanic is now out we are busy writing much more music to follow it up, we can’t give you a taste without the promise of more!
What do you wish for the future of electronic music? In what ways would you like to see it evolve?
I hope for electronic music to continue to grow and diversify, sometimes innovation can come from simply looking in the past and seeing what made music timeless. If you can channel that in your own music you’re bound to write something super interesting and catchy. Despite there being waves of similar sound it’s always cool hearing people burst onto the scene with something so fresh and inspired. I remember the feeling when Kaytranada first came out with his MPC inspired house that was 808 infused and unabashedly jammed out. It felt so fresh and yet so familiar, being able to capture those two elements is what makes music great for me.
Any last words for the SPIN-verse?
Thanks SPIN for having us for this interview was great fun writing up these mini-essay answers!
Check out Cosmo’s Midnight’s SET below! Want more SETS? Head over to SPIN TV to keep up with all the latest and greatest DJ/producers breaking through the electronic sphere.
