When Bossi and Nic Chagall met by chance at a label office in Cologne in late 1998, a lasting collaboration was born. As Cosmic Gate, the duo has produced four albums, countless remixes and a fair share of trance classics. Some of those signature tunes from 1999 to 2003 have been remixed by the likes of Jochen Miller, Markus Schulz and Arty for the new compilation Back 2 The Future, bringing them into line with Cosmic Gate’s sound of 2011.

Next month, the German vets will help Sander Van Doorn lead the trance charge at Future Music Festival. They’re certainly well-practised down under, and on the evidence of their recent Essential Mix, they’ve got some weapons to air. We got on the phone to Cosmic Gate from icy Germany to hear why summer in Australia was an offer they couldn’t refuse.

How was your New Years playing in Montreal?
It was nice! They have a very [good] after-hours scene. So we went to the club and partied from 7pm until nearly 11 in the morning. It was a good time!

So were you able to drop any tunes from the Back 2 The Future album on the night?
[Laughs] Yeah for sure! Right now we play a lot of tracks from Back 2 The Future.

How did the crowd react to the re-worked classics?
The reaction was pretty amazing! We were hoping it would be good but there was a storm around these tracks. We were so amazed with the reaction. And the great thing is that this album is bringing the old fans and the newer fans from the more recent years together into one. That’s the good thing about this album for us.

Seeing as you’ve been working together for 10 years have you ever come to a disagreement regarding your productions?
Cosmic Gate is a special and unique combination that we have so we won’t have a disagreement in terms of a fight or a big discussion. For sure, we always discuss our music, but most of the time when we’re in the studio we have exactly the same ideas and we will agree on the same points.

We are either saying yes or both saying no to something 90-percent of the time. For the other 10-percent of the time, one of us is positive on something and the other is not sure yet. But after having a think about it for five minutes we are both in agreement again! There’s never been an hour-long discussion.

How did you two decide on which artists would remix your tracks?
The first step was thinking about all the artists and producers we really like and play a lot of in our sets. Then we listened to the old tracks again and tried to decide who could fit a particular track and do a remix of it. So we thought of Arty, Markus Schulz and some others.

The great thing was that they were quite up for it from the beginning. Every artist we contacted was on fire to be included in this project! We were really happy about this because we know that sometimes it’s not easy to work on a track that’s 10 years old. They all did an amazing job and we are very happy with the album.

Do you both have different favourite remixes from the album?
We both have the same opinion about the mixes. Especially Arty’s remix of Back to Earth. We find it to be one of the best productions in the last year of the whole progressive trance scene. There are so many good mixes but we both mention this one, because it’s really outstanding for us.