Interview with Solarstone

It's a pleasure to have your interview on Trance Hub, Rich! What projects are you currently busy with?
Thanks for inviting me... as usual I'm juggling several projects at once. Electronic Architecture is in the foreground, the world tour is just starting and it is shaping up well. The Rain Stars Eternal remix CD is near to completion too, with a brand new selection of fantastic remixes of each and every track from the original album - that one is scheduled for the end of the summer. I'm working on several remixes at the moment too, one of which is for a legend of the electronic music world.

Your new album 'Electronic Architecture' has just been released. Can you please tell us what kind of mood and music you've put into the compilation?
The music is 45% progressive, 35% trance, 10% soft-tech, 5% breaks and 5% house. Electronic Architecture is a conscious attempt to raise the bar a bit in terms of edm comps which have, to me at least, become generic and a little stale. I wanted to do something a little different. The listener entrusts the dj to take them on a journey - I wanted to make that journey a little more challenging... new artists and new music instead of the usual predictable combination of big tunes and big names. Over the years I have found that often an artist's first few tracks are amongst their most interesting, and as I get sent so many unsigned demos for my labels and radio show, it made sense to cultivate some of them for the project. I worked together with many of the artists over the web to polish the records up to the required standard. Also, back in the halcyon days of Renaissance and Northern Exposure a lot of attention was paid to the packaging of the music. It was beautiful to look at and the art was an integral part of the experience. Also the in-club visuals played an important part in the whole thing. With E.A. we have created a combination of music and imagery in which to wrap the listener up... it's more of a total experience than just an auditory one. I wanted to create an album which your finger would pause upon whilst browsing a dusty CD shelf in a few years time.

Any 'E.A.' tune that you've been playing a lot recently at your gigs?
Many of them! One of my favorites is Alucard's amazing re-rub of the classic "Touched By God" from Katcha; it was one of my favorite Hooj Choons releases and the response to it is massive each time I drop it. Also my own remix of Winterlight "Mirror" is a personal favorite.

Do you agree on the fact that technology has made music production an easy task?
I think that technology has made the production of bad music an easy task - it is no easier now to create brilliant or beautiful music than it ever has been. There is so much average music about these days, labels seem happy to serve up any old shit as a release. Many 'big' labels seems to view it as 'throw enough shit against the wall and hope some of it sticks' - which in my opinion is a really terrible way to run a label. I had stopped bothering to download any promo material at all of several 'big' trance labels, having to wade through countless poor records - one release per week on some of them - just to find the occasional gem - is more trouble than it is worth, I simply do not have the patience or indeed the time.

Are you a dreamer? Which has been one of your most memorable dreams?
Yes - I think all artists must be dreamers - surely that is where our inspiration lies in wait for us to discover? Many people already know that I dreamt the music from "Seven Cities" and raced to the studio to lay it down - I'd defiantly put that down as one of my most memorable. I went through a phase of keeping a Dictaphone by my bed and I would wake up during the night and sing musical phrases and passages into it. Often, the following day, those recordings would make no sense to me, because usually when you sing a melody or bass line or lyric into a recorder you also have the rest of the track flying around in your head, which is of course impossible to record. Oh what wouldn't I give for a mind mapping tool that could record my thoughts in audio format! Now there's a dream...

You will be touring Asia which has many cities listed for 'E.A.' promotional tour, how essential is Asia on any DJs tour map?
To me it is imperative, I love playing in Asia - which of course is a massive place - my favorite gigs to date have been in Taipei and Shanghai. I'm hoping that the E.A. tour will touch down in all the major edm loving cities across Asia - although that may take some time! A full tour date diary will be posted on my website soon with a bit of luck.

We would love to have a rundown of your own all-time personal favourite productions / remixes and little bit of story / aspirations behind them.
I can certainly give you one or two! "Late Summer Fields"; I wrote the lyrics as a poem to my Wife - something I do not do very often, but she said something one day that sparked a whole song in me, she said "It makes me sparkle and shine". That inspired me to write a poem including that phrase. Alucard had written a beautiful piece of music to which the words I had written fitted perfectly. I sang the words over the music in one take - I hadn't even worked out the melody - it just landed that way. It's one of my favorite Solarstone tracks ever. "4ever" was something that came to me when driving home from Wales in 2007, there was snow everywhere and the melody and bass line progression came to me in a sudden flash - I recorded it onto my phone and entitled it 'Snowy Ideas'. It stayed on my phone for over a year until one day I chanced upon that old "Seven Cities" sound in my studio, and the 'Snowy Ideas' melody really worked. That is my Wife saying 'Forever' on the track!

Solaris International recently completed its 150 episodes. Congratulations on that! How long to you intend to take it forward?
I enjoy doing the show and it's a great way to connect with fans around the world. It helps that Robbie Nelson presents the show every other week as it does take a whole day to piece together each episode, I doubt I would be able to do it every week alone - there are too many other things that need to be done each week! We intend to keep building the show and taking it to as wide an audience as possible.

How would you narrate your experience working with Sam Tierney and Andy Bury?
All part of Life's Great Adventure :-)

It would be great to have your critical views on the current electronic music scene - from production quality to music sharing on the internet.
As with every form of music there is good and bad - depending on your personal taste! I am glad that the phase of bloody horrible 'digital' sounding trance is nearing an end - I hate it - it has no clarity or depth, just loads of tinny vst presets piled on top of each other. Thankfully melodic trance is slowing down a little and the progressive elements are coming to the fore. Regarding music sharing the internet - it is simply stealing from artists; it is as simple as that. Anybody who steals music from the artists by refusing to pay what is a tiny amount of money for something so precious, is simply helping to destroy what they claim to love, they are thieves and should be prosecuted as such. I have seen too many friends and colleagues careers destroyed as a result of debt incurred from loss of income because of this. Anybody who steals my music is, to me, no better than someone who steals the food from my son's plate.

"Late Summer Fields": beautiful title, beautiful track! What made you decide on the title of this track?
Well that's an easy one - Alucard named it! I think it was inspired by some huge corn fields near his home in Canada - we went there whilst filming some footage for the (as yet uncompleted) video - it is a truly beautiful place. We saw an eagle souring up in the sky there, and we larked about on enormous bales of hay :-) the track is going to be re-released at the end of this summer with some fantastic new mixes from some very special artists.

Your musical ambition for 2009 would be:
Same as ever; to produce more and better music, to write some good songs, to work with new musicians, make some interesting videos and discover new artists for my labels.

Are we seeing Young Parisians back in action anytime soon?
Hopefully yes! Young Parisians is sort of a loose collective of different musicians, Ben Lost provides most of the vocals, Nyje Summers is now on guitar and Moritz Schoenermann is now providing synths! We have a new track recorded called "Fashion", plus another one called "Nearly Men" almost complete. The idea with YP is to do something totally different to Solarstone - it was never meant as a trance act, but "Jump The Next Train" kind of forced it down that route, which is why I abandoned it for a while - there's no point in replicating myself under two different artist names.

Here is a bout of some random questions that we want you to answer briefly!
Your favourite trance producer: Forerunners
"Like A Waterfall" or "Late Summer Fields"? "Late Summer Fields"
What watch do you wear? I don't - my arms are too hairy!
Memorable on-stage moment: Sunrise on Boracay Island playing for Slinky.
Remixing or Producing? A bit of both for good measure.
Tune of 2009 (so far): Robbie Nelson - "Aviator" (Crashing Waves)

Message for your fans.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your love and support. Please don't share music!

Trance Hub thanks you for your invaluable time. Best wishes for your future projects!

For more info related to Solarstone check out the following link:
www.solarstone.co.uk
www.myspace.com/solarstone2006
www.twitter.com/richsolarstone
www.facebook.com/richsolarstone

Written by: Apoorv
Compiled by: Priyank

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