Solarstone, the Electronic Architect

Written by Marjan on 19 April 2011 in Interviews
Solarstone Interview

For over a decade Solarstone (Rich Mowatt) has rained fire onto dancefloors with a procession of revered club classics, all-out anthems & critically-acclaimed albums. We talk to him about the second installment of his IDMA nominated compilation - Electronic Architecture2.

Hi Rich! Please explain the whole Electronic Architecture concept to the readers not familiar with it.

The concept behind it was drawn from a realisation I had that DJ mix compilation albums seemed to have hit the buffers in terms of creativity and visual beauty. I wanted to create a series of albums that harked back to the days of Renaissance, when real attention was paid to the details, not only of finding new exciting music from new artist, but also the aesthetics of the packaging and promotion. So much is now possible within the web and also the multitude of tools at our disposal as DJs that the generic mass produced crap passed as 'DJ mixes' is not acceptable to me. I wanted to give people something better, something that is truly Music vs. Art...

This one comes 2 years after the original Electronic Architecture. Did creating it take that long?

Well I've been very busy with other projects in between! There's been the 'Touchstone' album for one thing – that took 12 months to record. I think 2 years is a reasonable gap – just long enough.

How does the follow up build upon the first Electronic Architecture?

The ethos behind Electronic Architecture2 is a continuation of the Electronic Architecture 1 theme: new music, new producers, inventive artwork, but developing the theme a little at each stage. For example we have the cool interactive website where people can deconstruct the albums cover art and then reconstruct their own version, which they can then send into us and enter our competition. We've had some stunning entries already.

I know putting it into words is challenging, but I'm interested, how would you describe the sound of this compilation?

That's easy – Music vs. Art, squared.

How did you go picking the tracks for the compilation? What does a track need to have in order to be considered an "Electronic Architecture" material?

Hmm that's an interesting question. I look for understated beauty – evocative melodies that don't stray into bloated pomp, warm and emotional production. Some tracks work best as part of a mix rather than standalone tracks – sometimes I will sign a track because it has a particular percussive element that I know would compliment another track on the album. It's all about the mix – as opposed to the individual tracks themselves.

Two of your own tracks appear on the release: Orkidea's remix of Touchstone and a brand new tune called "Big Wheel". Why did you pick Orkidea's remix of Touchstone for this compilation?

The short answer is firstly that I felt there should be a Solarstone track on each disc, and secondly Orkidea has already completed this beautiful remix and it fitted perfectly on disc 2.

Is "Big Wheel" going to be released as a single?

Yes – it was released yesterday – April 18th!

Is there a tour planned following the release of EA2?

Indeed, there is a full world tour in the planning right now, taking in all major territories.

I'm heading off to Recife in Brazil on May 7th and on to Ageha in Tokyo on the 14th. We'll announce all the dates on the Solarstone website and also on the electronicarchitecture website.

Are you aiming for another IDMA nomination with this release?

Haha.. That would be nice! Let's wait and see... if it does get nominated it would be even better if it were to win. :)

Any plans for EA3 yet?

Watch this space! Next project is Electronic Architecture2 Ambient Edition, then the next Solarstone album. I think 2013 is likely for Electronic Architecture3.



Other News