In their native Danish, the song “Alting Løser Sig” — a track right in the middle of Kosmos, Bremer/McCoy‘s sixth full-length album — translates to “Everything Will Work Out”. It is a fitting title because things always seem to go their way for these two.
Bassist Jonathan Bremer and keyboardist/tape delay maestro Morten McCoy initially bonded over a shared love of all things dub and jazz in school, soon finding a unique chemistry with each other. Primarily recording while improvising, their 2013 dub-indebted debut Enhed became a slow-burning success, gradually turning into a hotly listened-to item over various streaming services, even though the duo’s journey would push them into more slowed-down, minimal compositions on their subsequent albums. While recent records like 2021’s Natten relied on more icy synth tones, the group’s overall dynamic, with Bremer laying down slow and slinky basslines and McCoy dancing his keys over them, has remained unchanged over the past decade.
“I feel like we’ve stayed true to our original sound from Enhedof double bass and keyboards but expanded on it,” Bremer notes when speaking to PopMatters. “I still feel like the simplicity of the first album is our core. It’s hard to say where our sonic is going in the future. I’d rather not make any guesses and just see what happens and stay in flow.”
While each of their songs has a tight melodic basis, some of these come from jamming out, while others have been closely considered for years. “Some of the melodies on Kosmoswere written by Morten over ten years ago, and we only finished them now,” explains Bremer.
The group’s routine has become insular to the point of distinctness: so careful they are with their sound they travel to gigs with their own soundsystem without fail. Seeing them perform live, their recorded songs take on new shapes, textures, and forms, as McCoy is often seen playing two keyboards with two different hands simultaneously. It’s here that Bremer feels much of their magic becomes apparent:
“I’d say we stretch the songs quite a bit at concerts. We used to stick a bit more to the compositions, but lately, we’ve made a conscious decision to be more free at live shows. It keeps the music fresh and alive. Of course, we do have some arrangements that we stick to more or less, but it’s important for us to keep an open mind and not have too many preconceived notions of how the tunes should sound on a given day.”
Yet, given that Kosmos is Bremer/McCoy’s sixth album, one has to wonder how it fits in their lineage and, to that point, how often the duo listens to those early star-making full-lengths.
“It’s been a long time (some years) since I listened to our older albums from start till finish,” Bremer admits. “We record and mix our albums ourselves, and when we’re done with an album, we’ve listened to it so many times. I also like the creative flow of moving on and not hanging on to the past too much. It’s still a lot of fun to play the old tunes live, though. They still feel fresh and get a new life at concerts.”
Kosmos‘ opener (and lead single) “High Road” opens with the same cold synth tones we heard on Natten but soon breaks into a more naturalistic slow-shuffle of a classic Bremer/McCoy vibe. However, despite the new album not being as overall synth-heavy as the last one, Bremer gently pushes back on the idea that the more isolated vibes from 2021’s Natten were born out of the feelings related to a certain global lockdown we all went through.
“I don’t think the sound was related to the pandemic,” he notes. “It kinda felt like a natural evolution for us to have more synthy, dubby soundscapes. It may also be related to the simple fact that we had bought a Moog One synth and a Nagra tape machine for delays, and we wanted to use them a lot.”
In trying to articulate the duo’s sound for others, one might want to lean on Western reference points like the more traditional work of the Vince Guaraldi Trio or perhaps the less abrasive side of the Bad Plus, but Bremer says that their strength comes from a wide variety of muses.
“I think we draw inspiration from many places,” he says. “Oftentimes, there’s no clearly defined/specific inspiration for our tunes. I think for me, the most inspiring is not necessarily other musicians but rather things that happen in life, feelings, philosophy, and experiences. If I should point to some music that has inspired us, though, it could be the [1964] album Jazz på Svenskaby Jan Johansson.”
Yet for a group like Bremer/McCoy whose aesthetics seem to be universal expression through the power of music and unity, it’s no surprise that they have little interest in things like checking their streaming numbers. “I don’t really think about streaming numbers,” Bremer notes. “I find it very boring. If I could choose, I would, of course, rather have people listen to the newer albums as they are a representation of where we are now, and I think they’re better. But I don’t think about those numbers at all.”
For a group that takes their craft seriously and remain in control of their direct sound, it remains fascinating to see them adopt a laid-back, almost casual vibe in both its cadence and compositions. Kosmos is yet another brick in its lush and beautiful discography, of which they would only make small changes if given the chance.
“There are many small things that I would do differently today,” notes Bremer, asking if he regrets the duo’s time in the jazz limelight. “Some details about the recordings, mixing, and mastering. A few compositional things I think we would do differently today. I’m not sure what our peak accomplishment is, but one thing I’m proud of is that we’ve always made exactly the music we wanted to, without influence from outside expectations or commercial considerations.”
In short, a lot of hard work goes into making albums so utterly blissful, but it’s for this reason that everything seems to work out for Bremer/McCoy.