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Features
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| Introducing NEM3SI$’s new label Infinite Resistance! | | Mindbenderz talk ‘Lord of the Rings’ and fishing, as well as the creation of their new album ‘Celestial Gateway’! | | Iono-Music artists One Function, Eliyahu, Invisible Reality and Dual Vision talk Robert Miles, kids, dogs and vinyl, while we chat about their current releases! | | Luke&Flex talk influences, the Irish rave scene, why Flex wears a mask and Play Hard, their new EP out now on Onhcet Repbulik Xtreme! | | Lyktum expands on his new album ‘Home’ – talking about his love of storytelling, creating new harmonies and the concept behind his musical works. | | Pan talks getting caught short crossing the Sahara, acid eyeballs and tells us Trance is the Answer, plus shares his thoughts on his latest release 'Beyond the Horizon' - all from a beach in Spain! | | Miss C chats about living with the KLF, DJing in a huge cat’s mouth, training her brain and the upcoming super-duper Superfreq Grande party at LDN East this Saturday, 16th September! | | NEM3SI$ - I Live for the Night – talks superficiality, psychopaths, and bittersweet success, ahead of a plethora of evocative, emotional, and passionate upcoming melodic techno releases! | | Psy-Sisters Spring Blast Off! We talk to DJ competition winner ROEN along with other super talents on the lineup! | | Blasting towards summer festivals with Bahar Canca ahead of Psy-Sisters Spring Blast! | | Shyisma talks parties, UFO's, and Shotokan Karate ahead of his upcoming album 'Particles' on Iono-Music! | | SOME1 talks family, acid, stage fright and wolves - ahead of his upcoming album release ‘Voyager’ on Iono-Music in February 2023! | | The Transmission Crew tell all and talk about their first London event on 24th February 2023! | | NIXIRO talks body, mind and music production ahead of his release 'Planet Impulse' on Static Movement's label - Sol Music! | | Turning the world into a fairy tale with Ivy Orth ahead of Tribal Village’s 10th Birthday Anniversary Presents: The World Lounge Project | | The Psy-Sisters chat about music, achievements, aspirations and the 10-Year Anniversary Party - 18/12/22! | | A decade of dance music with Daniel Lesden | | Earth Needs a Rebirth! Discussions with Psy-Trance Artist Numayma | | Taking a Journey Through Time with Domino | | New Techno Rising Star DKLUB talks about his debut release White Rock on Onhcet Republik! | | PAN expands on many things including his new album 'Hyperbolic Oxymoron' due for release on the 14th April 2022 on PsyWorld Records! | | Psibindi talks all things music including her new collaborative EP 'Sentient Rays' on Aphid Records, her band Sentience Machine and 10 years of Psy-Sisters! |
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Illuminate Electronic Sessions with Solarstone
Reported by Roscosulli
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Submitted 22-01-08 11:47
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
ElectronicSessions 2nd Birthday
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On:
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Saturday 9th February 2008
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At:
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Hidden [map]
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From:
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22.00 - 06.00
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Cost:
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£12 Cons / £15 on the door / £8 Early bird
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Website:
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www.electronicsessions.co.uk
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Ticket Info:
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EARLY BIRD TICKETS - www.electronicsessions.co.uk
ONLY £8 Until Jan 9th!
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Buy Online:
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Click here to buy tickets
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More:
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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...
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Flyer:
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Region:
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London
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Music:
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Trance. Tech Trance. House. Deep House. Funky House. Prog House. Tribal House. Vocal House. Electro House. Soulful House. Tech House. Techno. Club Classics. Electro. Disco. Soul. Chillout / Leftfield.
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DJ's:
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Solarstone
Jon O'Bir
Niklas Harding
Mark Pledger
Mike Foyle
Chris Salt
Filth & Splendour
Lizzie Curious
Alan Banks
The Cordinators
The Persuaders
Chris Cee
Kriess Guyte Vs Matt Kaycee
Matt Dahl Vs Markus Buhmann
Niall Gilliland
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Other Features By Roscosulli:
Ahoy there, it's Lizzie Curious
Niklas Harding gets all shipshape for Electronic Sessions
All aboard, it's Bennett's Electronic Boat Sessions
Ahoy there my Electronic Sessions maties, it's Andy Moor
Re:Locate yourself to Electronic Sessions.
The views and opinions expressed in this review are strictly those of the author only for which HarderFaster will not be held responsible or liable.
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Comments:
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From: roscosulli on 24th Jan 2008 10:25.11
Bring it on!! 2 weeks and counting!...ok well just over:-)
From: Andy Dunford on 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 Cox on 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.A on 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: Ian Edwards on 1st Feb 2008 19:50.27
Quality
From: ED_case on 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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