Pilar residents Kosmo Sound: Cocooning together

A conversation with Mattias Geernaert (bass) and Marius Couvreur (drums) from the band Kosmo Sound. About their residency, the creative process, and the theme “Echo”: “We want to turn every song into a trip.”

Kosmo Sound is a six-piece “instrumental space dub” band from Ghent. With their infectious beats, deep basslines, and jazz influences, they get many listeners dancing. After releasing an EP and a few singles, they released their first album, *Antenna*, in late 2020. They are currently in residence at Pilar as part of the Pilar ASAP: The Echo Edition festival. We spoke with them after the recording of their virtual reality session.

Has it been a long time since you guys performed together on stage?

Marius: “Not really. We’ve actually been able to do a few livestreams in the meantime, including one at the Handelsbeurs in Ghent. This was definitely a new experience, though. It was quite a special recording, with the 360° camera right in the middle.”

Mattias: “I’m glad that, despite everything, we can still play together—it feels good. I love being busy, especially when it comes to music. We’re also a fun bunch together (laughs), and that definitely gives us energy.”

How’s the residency going so far?

Mattias: “It’s great to have a separate place to get together, to create that little cocoon just for the six of us. You have a whole weekend to work on music together, and in the meantime, you can have a drink and a laugh. There’s less time pressure, which makes the creative process flow more smoothly. I also notice that our music comes together organically when we can rehearse for longer. It gives us more room for interpretation and discussion.”

Marius: “Even though we just released an album, we already had a lot of new ideas we wanted to try out. This residency was ideal for that. It really is about being somewhere else entirely. You can’t go home; you can’t just quickly answer a few emails on your laptop. No, it’s purely about creating together.”

Creative process

There are six of you. How do you collaborate creatively?

Marius: “Each song has one composer. Someone comes to rehearsal with an idea or a written score. Then we play it together and tweak it a bit. That’s how the song takes on its final form. Ideally, we’ll then perform the song a few times on stage so we can get feedback from the audience.”

Each of you also plays in another band. Do you influence each other that way?

Mattias: “Definitely. I see that as a positive thing: we’re constantly inspired by our other projects. That way, we have different sources of inspiration.”
Marius: “Definitely. In one of my other bands, Madame Balvatsky, for example, I experiment a lot with electronics, so I try to incorporate that into Kosmo Sound. But it works the other way around, too—Kosmo Sound inspires us for our other projects.”

Do you often draw on personal experiences in your music?

Marius: “That happens every now and then. The song ‘Aunt Sister Lydia’ is based on my great-aunt. After she passed away, I inherited the piano that was in her home. I started messing around on it, and that’s how the little melody the song is based on came about. ‘Furious’ is also inspired by a personal experience. I was extremely angry about the daily news, and I just had to let that anger out.”
Mattias: “‘Hofstr.’ is a reference to a three-year relationship with my roommate. I also wrote the song together with her. So that refers to something real, something personal, but that’s certainly not the case with all of our songs.”

Pilar ASAP: The Echo Edition

What does the theme “Echo” mean to you?

Marius: “You can take it very literally. For us, ‘Echo’ comes very naturally: as a dub band, we often experiment with effects and delays in our music. Playing a sound and letting it echo for a long time—that’s something we do all the time. All our songs are built around that, so this theme is a perfect fit for us.”
Mattias: “It really does make sense for us. Ta ta ta ta ta ta ta… (imitates an echo). Five years later, it still sounds good (laughs).”

During the festival, “Echo” is also explored in other ways. The opening lecture, a conversation between Ilja Leonard Pfeiffer and Caroline Pauwels, for example, focused on the importance of truth today.

Mattias: “I think the truth has actually always been important, not just in 2021. People think there’s a lot of skepticism now, but that’s actually always been the case and always will be. There’s no such thing as absolute truth: there are certainly things you can trust, but I think that’s a choice you have to make for yourself.”
Marius: “I do feel like people are lying more often these days. On social media, anyone can claim whatever they want without having any proof to back it up. Politicians no longer tell the truth because it’s no longer valued. People are being lied to outright, and I think that’s definitely a problem today.”
Mattias: “But ‘no longer’—they’ve simply never done that (laughs).”

In the exhibition, *This Too Shall Pass*, artists explore the boundary between memory and imagination. Do you have memories where you’re not sure if they actually happened?

Mattias: “I think you don’t remember exactly how things actually happened. There’s always a certain amount of imagination mixed in, but that’s also what makes it interesting. Living in the here and now? Forget it—just live in history. You’ll always add a little color to your memories, but that’s exactly what makes it so much fun.”

Finally: how do you see the future with Kosmo Sound?

Marius: “Bright. This residency has been very meaningful. We’ll be trying to record again soon, and we’re already thinking about a new album. Another fun thing to look forward to: we’ll soon be having three remixes made of our previous album with some cool artists from the dub scene.”