![\"\"](\"https:\/\/edmnations.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Solarstone-2025-3.jpg\" "\\"Solarstone")
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It\u2019s been a minute since Solarstone\u2019s last album. (Actually, it\u2019s been several million of them, as \u2018island\u2019 was released five years ago!). In that time life\u2019s given us all plenty to ponder, and Rich Solarstone\u2019s no exception to that. At a point in time where everything is supposed to streamline, Solarstone\u2019s experience might better be described as \u2018mainline\u2019. He became a husband, a father again and watched his firstborn come of age. A lot of new perspectives are naturally going to follow that. No stranger to pouring his creative force, thoughts and feelings into his music, that reaches an apex this month with the release of his ninth album.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Make no mistake \u2026 this one\u2019s coming from deep within.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGood music demands that you push yourself, and the best of it also forces you to take risks \u2026 \u201d\u00a0<\/em>says Rich Mowatt,\u201cand I\u2019m more than aware that \u2018innermost\u2019 inherently carries some of the latter.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n In its native form, this is not a club album, but then I didn\u2019t see 2020\u2019s\u2018 island\u2019 as one either. I\u00a0believe\u00a0that area is better addressed by my singles \u2018(Shards\u2019, \u2018Hope\u2019, \u2018Sovereign\u2019 ,\u2018Thinking Of You\u2019, and so forth), and the Pure Trance albums\u201d\u00a0<\/em>(three editions of which have been released since 2020). That leaves latter-day Solarstone artist albums more open to explore \u2026to range, so the clubbier tracks that do exist on\u00a0<\/em>\u2018innermost\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/em>are woven into a broader sonic texture.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n I feel that tough is good<\/em>\u201d, he continues. \u201cHard \u2026 is good. It never, ever seems like it\u00a0when you are in the middle of it, but without going through those, life\u2019s highest highs can\u2019t be felt to their fullest<\/em>.\u00a0At its core that\u2019s what\u00a0<\/em>\u2018innermost\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is about. It\u2019s certainly my most honest longplayer to\u00a0date, as well as my most\u00a0polished.\u00a0It took five years to make so\u00a0there\u2019s no excuses for it not to be!\u201d,\u00a0<\/em>he jokes.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTo\u00a0put\u00a0that into some context,\u00a0\u2018shivelight\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>(the effect created when shafts of sunlight filter through trees)is a track I started working on the same year as \u2018island\u2019 was released. It would\u2019ve been almost indecent not to open the album with it, but luckily its baritone guitars\u00a0proved the\u00a0ideal\u00a0scene-set for\u00a0everything that\u00a0comes after.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Clara Yates wrote the song\u00a0\u2018your sacrifice\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0about her father. As I read through the lyrics, I recognised they were immediately personal to her, but she was also expressing sentiments that I believed most could relate to. That was\u00a0personally\u00a0inspiring, and it spurred me to produce \u2018over the mountains\u2019<\/strong>. It has elements of a song I used to sing as a lullaby of sorts to my first son, as well as having some \u2018Seven Cities\u2019 vibes to its production.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u2018dream sequence\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>and\u00a0\u2018sonata\u2019,<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0which falls later in the album both take their cues from the heyday of progressive house. The former channels the early times of Underworld, Leftfield and others, while the latter imagines a Chopin-esque sonata arrangement seen through the prism of the dawn-of-the-genre sounds generated by labels like EyeQ, Harthouse and Superstition.<\/p>\n That continues to a degree on\u00a0\u2018innermost\u2019<\/strong><\/a>s next piece,\u00a0\u2018star\u2019<\/strong>, which features Susie Ledge. Says Rich, \u201cI had\u00a0<\/em>(Sabres Of Paradise\u2019s)\u00a0\u2018Smokebelch\u2019 in my head while I was working on it and an Enya sample as a placeholder vocal. With her Gaelic inspired harmonies and song, Susie brilliantly picked up on that theme. This was another track that took an age to perfect, but timewise, it was nothing compared to the title track itself. It took a week alone just to master the piano melodyfor\u00a0\u2018innermost\u2019<\/strong>, and emotionally, everything from the last five years somehow got bound up into it.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n With a title a that serves as a metaphor for\u00a0its subject,\u00a0\u2018underground\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0addresses the complexities of\u00a0depression. Singer Evan Henzi brilliantly delivers\u00a0hope-tinged optimism to\u00a0every word, as Rich\u2019s production supplies its heartbeat. While\u00a0\u2018boy\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0was written following the birth of his second son,\u00a0its\u00a0subject is his firstborn. Reflecting on (as Rich dubs it) \u201cthe cradle to the rave<\/em>\u201d period of early adulthood, its swims with wistful pads, thrummed guitars and longer drawn strings. Second only in intimacy perhaps to\u00a0\u2018innermost\u2019<\/strong>\u00a0itself,\u00a0\u2018complicated\u2019<\/strong>, the album\u2019s denouement, is a consideration on new love, and what happens when expectation meets life head on.\u00a0<\/p>\n An incredible album, brimming with honesty and clarity,\u00a0\u2018innermost\u2019<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0holds nothing back. You can find it\u00a0through all good sales and streaming sites<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0from June 12.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n