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There are lots of cool people with the name black. Sirius Black, for one. Or everyone's favourite alcoholic Bernard Black. But here's one that isn't fictional: Australian indie electro shape-makers Cosmo Black.
With their timeline starting back in 2008, Cosmo Black started out as a bit of a random experimentation between Cosmo (bass, synth, vocals) and James (drums). The productive pair quickly cooked up a storm of their very own innovative edits, remixes, demos and bootlegs but it wasn't until late last year that they started performing live with third member Nick (guitar, vocals). In less than a year, this trio have wowed audiences across Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney with their immense and intense energy, and dance-floor-filling anthems.
Paper-Deer gets electro-genius Cosmo to spin a yarn or two.
You're called Cosmo. Where did the “Black” in the band name come from?
Cosmo was the first choice of name for me by my parents. However, the acid must have worn off in time for my christening. So I reverted back to Cosmo when I started putting lo-fi electro demos on the internet. I added Black because myspace.com/cosmo was taken - true story. Then James started sitting next to me at my computer, then Nick joined and we became a band.
What do you each bring to the band?
Cosmo: beard, computer
Nick: the humour (in place of picks, leads, amps, guitars etc.)
James: a burning passion for long, descriptive emails.
What do you guys sound like live?
It’s much more fun live. Some of our tracks sound very different live as we recreate them with synth, bass, guitar, samples and live drums. We chuck in the odd remix to play live too and run it more like a DJ set with very few breaks.
You only started performing live gigs late last year, and have already supported Miami Horror and Juggernaut DJs and have worked with Matt Hills. What’s your secret to success?
Sexual favours for the most part. Beyond that we work pretty hard on the songs. From the start we also had the support from a group of kids in Adelaide and Melbourne who liked our sound and really helped us out. I think our last show was only our eleventh show.
What is it about certain songs that make you want to remix them?
Obviously liking the song is a good start, but it’s fun to try and get as original a sound as possible within set parameters. Also, the opportunity to stack layer upon layer of synths is pretty fun.
If you could have any piece of musical equipment, what would it be?
Well, a bunch of the sounds we recorded recently came from my old housemate’s Juno 6 analogue synth. Now he lives in Amsterdam and I wish I had it so I could keep writing with it.
Do you have any embarrassing or funny Cosmo Black stories that you’d like to tell Paper-Deer?
They mostly took place on a recent backpacking trip to South America. Sadly none of them are fit for the public domain. Sorry...
If you're intrigued, pop over to their Bandcamp website or their Triple J Unearthed profile to download When Night Becomes the Morn and an exclusive DCUP remix for free. These guys are all about the free love.
DATES:
- August 2: Supporting Delphic at Uni Bar, Adelaide (for all you South Australian readers)
- August 26: Shake Some Action @ 161
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