Solarstone are responsible for some of recent club history's most defining moments and sounds but how many people know that alongside the Solarstone moniker, Rich Mowatt & Andy Bury's other pseudonyms include The Young Parisians, Z2, Liquid State & Skyscraper. Since their chance meeting over 11 years ago, Solarstone have amassed a solid worldwide following from clubbers and DJs alike, their musical output being firmly supported by every Trance and Progressive dj worth their salt.
It's surprising then that this will bre Solarstone's first performance in London in a long time, only now the outfit only consists of Rich Mowatt. Ahead of his headlining appearance at the Electronic Sessions 2nd Birthday, Roscosulli caught up with Mr Solarstone himself to find out more about the split, the dance scene and Brazil!
Hiya Rich, so how was 2007 for you?
Very creative, I’ve been working on the forthcoming album solidly all this year, and it’s 95% complete.
Having been a trance ambassador now for years, would you say that still describes your sound best?
Absolutely, I’m still flying the flag for quality trance!
You have a new album due out this spring, can you tell us a bit more about it please?
It is called Rain Stars Eternal, its all new material and so much emotion and energy has gone into it that I am physically exhausted! It is beautifully packaged and if I died tomorrow I’d be a happy man knowing that this album was coming out soon.
Agnelli & Nelson have completed their remix of the title track and that is going to be the next single, with promo beginning right now. It’s a wicked melodic driving trance track. There are clips of some of the tracks on my site www.solarstone.co.uk.
Where is your fave place to play in the Uk at the moment ? and what do you think of the trance scene here at the moment?
Gatecrasher will always be my favourite place to play in the UK, simply because Solarstone and Gatecrasher go back such a long way in terms of music. I don’t play there as often as I’d like though. I’m looking forward to the ES date because it’s good to see someone pushing the trance sound in the UK. Gatecrasher is great, but it’s hardly underground. ES has got a growing reputation as a wicked underground trance night.
You have recently gone your own separate ways as Solarstone, what were your thoughts behind this?
Andy and I no longer shared the same taste in music, I still love listening to and producing trance based music, whereas Andy headed down a more house based road. It was a natural progression for us both. We went our separate ways in late 2006 but it had been on the cards for some time, we’re still mates and still run the label, Deepblue, together. I do the A&R and Andy does the design and business side of things.
What is the best club you have played and why?
Slinky beach party on Borocay island in the Philippines in 2006. Purely for the beautiful setting!
Who are your biggest influences production wise?
That’s an impossible one to answer these days. I’m not really influenced by anyone on the production side, I just do my own thing. Musically I have a thousand influences, from Trevor Horn to Keane to Elgar, the list is endless!
Do you prefer the massive events and festivals or the smaller more intimate gigs?
Again, impossible to answer, each has its own merits! Intimate gigs are great if the club is rocking, massive events are ok if they are busy! I find that big gigs abroad are better than in the UK, but small clubs in the UK can be rocking, especially if there are decent disco biscuits in the house.
You diary is jam packed with gigs all over the world, where have you not played yet that is an absolute must?
Bangkok, Lebanon, New Zealand and France are a few places I’d like to play.
You recently did a tour of Brazil, how was it?
I’m actually there now as I write this! The first gig is tonight at Manga Rosa in Sao Paulo. I’m looking forward to it, the last time I played here was a blast, the Friday was on a cruise ship and Saturday I was in Santa Catarina.
Any new years resolutions?
To spend more time with my family, I don’t want to miss my son growing up.
You host the Deepblue radio show podcast each week, Can you tell us a bit more about it?
The show goes out on 40+ stations worldwide each week, and is also available as a podcast via iTunes. Robbie Nelson and I take it in turns to present the show each week, it is a blend of different styles of EDM, but mainly trance of course, we have a great laugh doing it and the response has been amazing. We’re about to hit our 100th episode soon and Christopher Lawrence is going to guest for us.
As someone with a firm footing in the history of dance music, how do you see the rise of digital DJing technology? Is it an avenue for increased creativity or just a chance for DJs to get lazy?
It’s great – I’m 100% CD these days. Vinyl is just cumbersome and irrelevant to the DJ these days, its more of a collectors niche now, which is fine. I’m over it completely now. In fact, the whole digital thing is just the way it is now. I would never use a laptop for mixing simply because I think the audience likes to see the DJ actually doing something with his hands and being spontaneous, but I wouldn’t knock any other Dj for using Ableton for example – however if the DJ looks like he’s checking his email it can be a bit boring for the audience I guess, different strokes for different folks!
If you had to choose, what would you say has been your favourite personal Solarstone production ever? And what do you think was your biggest?
My favourite ever is Late Summer Fields, because it’s a very personal song to me. The biggest is obviously going to be Seven Cities! However I’ve heard that track so many times now that I’m kind of numb to it, which you would expect. The constant flow of bootlegs of 7C from producers trying to get famous is very annoying.
We are really looking forward to gtetting you down headlining the ES 2nd Birthday! What can we expect from your set?
A smooth selection of quality trance!
HarderFaster wishes Electronic Sessions a very happy birthday!
Photos courtesy of Fresh Artiste Management. Not to be reproduced without permission
7 sell-out boat parties, 7 club events, 5 different top venues and over 100 different DJs... that's just a slice of what ES have delivered in the last 2 years, and we're certainly not going to hold back now!
Ladies and gentlemen... boys and girls... we present to you...
THE ELECTRONICSESSIONS 2ND BIRTHDAY BASH!
THIS IS NO ORDINARY EVENT - it'll show you a side of London clubbing you haven't seen before and it'll certainly raise the roof! Come with us as we put the PARTY back into the party and show that there's more to things than meets the eye...
From: roscosullion 24th Jan 2008 10:25.11 Bring it on!! 2 weeks and counting!...ok well just over:-)
From: Andy Dunfordon 24th Jan 2008 13:45.16 It's so refreshing to see a dj/producer who still plays and produces quality melodic trance music after all this time and isn't afraid to shout about it. Top stuff.
Didn't know about that album either, will look out for that!
From: Stu Coxon 24th Jan 2008 22:03.58 Last time I saw him he was absolutely superb - and that's coming from someone who doesn't get overly excited about melodic trance these days.
He's gonna tear it up at ES
From: SCOTTY.Aon 24th Jan 2008 23:32.14 cant wait for this event... such a quality line-up which pushes every aspect of trance one could want (",) see ya there people
From: ED_caseon 9th Feb 2008 02:01.03 I hear you Andy. It's almost as if most DJs these days are too "cool" to be seen to be admitting to playing trance music.
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