‘Rain Stars Eternal’’ – The Album
Released: May 5th 2008
Solaris Recordings CD, 2 X 12” DJ Pack & DD
Over a year in its creation & representing the first music from Solarstone as a solo artist, ‘Rain Stars Eternal’ is the new ‘year one’ for founder member and driving force, Rich Mowatt.
Through tracks like ‘Solarcoaster’, ‘Speak in Sympathy’, ‘The Calling’ & the Tiësto caned ‘Like a Waterfall’, Rich has delivered 10 straight years of club smashes. His Top 40 hit ‘Seven Cities’ has sound-tracked tens of thousands of Balearic holidays and was rated as the best trance record of the last 10 years by DJ Magazine. Throughout that period Solarstone has torn through the production ranks, becoming infinitely synonymous with trance and succeeded in releasing nothing but the highest quality dance music.
This new album - the follow-up to 2006’s retrospective ‘Anthology One’ - starts to significantly push at the borders of the Trance genre, into Progressive & Chillout and further beyond.
Through tracks like ‘Part of Me’, ‘Filoselle Skies’ & ‘Lunar Rings’, the album coalesces creative song-writing and haunting, evocative vocal performances. Elsewhere ‘Breakaway’ (featuring American singer Alex Karweit) eclectically draws on 80’s influences while ‘Slave’ & ‘The Last Defeat Pt.1’ deliver authentic, immersive chillout of the highest order. Thus far Solarstone is probably best known for sophisticated high-end melodica and ultra-powerful, emotion-fuelled club music. Amnesia anthem-in-the-making ‘Spectrum’, Prog-fused title track ‘Rain Stars Eternal’, and ‘Seven Cities’ touchstone ‘4Ever’ all show Solarstone’s unquenchable thirst for delivering dance music to the heart of the floor. ‘R.S.E.’ also showcases Rich’s abilities at every aspect of the creative process… Writer, producer, engineer and for the first time on this album as singer and songwriter. Last year’s ‘Late Summer Fields’ and the album’s essential additional download track ‘Dark Heart’ display his abilities as the consummate all-round EDM artist.
‘Rain Stars Eternal’ was conceived, written and created as a listen from start-to-finish pre-club, post-club, wherever-the--you-like, long-player! Masterfully crafted with zero fillers and zero fat!
In Rich’s own words: "For me, Solarstone has always been about melody and emotion. I love inspirational vocals and beautiful music and wanted to create an album that encompassed all the elements of modern electronic music that I am passionate about. I also wanted to reach outside the boundaries of EDM, to incorporate some of the brilliant musicians and singers that I've met during my worldwide DJing travels, to collaborate with me on some of these tracks. The title of the album was conceived early on and really did dictate the direction of the music: inspirational, hopeful, and poignant in places... I want people to feel this for what it has been: a true labour of love."
‘Rain Stars Eternal’ Tracklist
1. ‘Intro’
2. ‘Part Of Me’ (Original Mix) (Vocals by Elizabeth Fields)
3. ‘Rain Stars Eternal’
4. ‘Late Summer Fields’ (Vocals by Rich Mowatt)
5. ‘Filoselle Skies’ (Vocals by Julie Scott)
6. ‘Spectrum’
7. ‘Lunar Rings’ (Vocals by Essence)
8. ‘Breakaway’ (Vocals by Alex Karweit)
9. ‘4Ever’
10.‘Slave’ (Vocals by Julie Scott)
11.’The Last Defeat Pt. 1’
What the DJs & press say about Solarstone:
“Solarstone set the standard for the best in Balearic dance music'- Armin
“I've been playing his music for more then 10 years now.
Really looking forward to the new album!” – Paul van Dyk
"Solarstone never disappoints… warm, beautiful and just amazing music" - Tiësto
“Solarstone is the REAL DEAL” – Above & Beyond
““Always been a fan of Solarstone – the new single is amazing” – Ferry Corsten
“5/5 – ‘Late Summer Fields’ is STUNNING!” - DJ Mag
Top dog when it comes to melodic monsters" – Mixmag
"My record bag is rammed with Solarstone productions - huge fan"-Thrillseekers
"One of the few who's been able to remain cutting edge for so long”. Gaz Emery
“He has what a DJ needs: an amazing connection with the crowd and a case full of epic tracks & great energy” – Marcos Yamin, Club On Brazil
"Without a doubt one of the most legendary names in trance!" – Menno de Jong
Introduction to ‘Rain Stars Eternal’
Welcome, welcome, welcome! Welcome indeed to the world of ‘Rain Stars Eternal’… A very nice place to visit, so they say and one that I first skimmed the surface of back in late summer 2007.
The very first time those three words were spoken to me they sparked something up in my mind that worked no less dynamically than an electric current would. Unsurprisingly the voice speaking them belonged to their creator, Rich Solar and it felt lightly congruous that those words came down a mobile phone connection from the middle of a field in Cornwall. After all, what better place to truly experience at least two out of the three titular elements, eh? ‘Spiritual’, as such, is not something I typically do… Ask my friends. However anyone who gets an emotional style of music like trance cannot be closed off to that side of things entirely… Somehow, in a strange way the title ‘Rain Stars Eternal’ does a great job, subconsciously, internally & completely of summing up the music of Solarstone.
This album has, I think, a tangible air of ‘Year One’ about it. A new beginning – and to a certain degree (given that this is the first music Rich has produced as a solo artist) that’s indeed what it is. As many fans will already know it also contains the first Solarstone produce that features Mr Mowatt working on every facet of the music’s creation. Namely: writer, producer, engineer, and perhaps most intriguingly lyricist & vocalist. Tracks like ‘Late Summer Fields’ & ‘Dark Heart’ (don’t miss the download!) are likely to throw-up one question, time and time again over the coming months… ‘Where on God’s clean earth has Rich been hiding that voice for the last 13 years’? Other tracks of course will deeply resonate with Solar fans from the ‘Seven Cities’ school, while others display a distinct, forward-looking progression to his music.
One way or another, back in summer 2007, in that Cornish field, ‘Rain’ ‘Stars’ & ‘Eternal’ were just three highly evocative words. Now they are an album, and dare I venture it’s a masterfully crafted one at that… The one you’re now holding in your hands of course and maybe even listening to right now.
Stino
has to be good :)
Tenshi
i really like the cover design!
let's hope the music is just as good ;)
Mr.Mystery
Wasn't Late Summer Fields on AnthologyOne already?
Mattsanity
this simply must meet its expectations and Im pretty sure it will
breakaholic
quote:
Originally posted by Mr.Mystery
Wasn't Late Summer Fields on AnthologyOne already?
It was but this seem to be new version. Sounds even better to me :)
There will be an upcoming contest when the album is released for signed copies of the release and signed tour shirts. I will let you know once I have more info...I am organizing one of the contests on another site.
I will post more of a review once I get my copy ;)
Paradox Lost
This wound up being a rather uneventful release for me.
It's structured like your typical artist album, with an ambient intro-outro bridge between a good number of the tracks, and everything is allocated quite well. You have your atmospheric little intro, some banging Prog. Trance, followed by some scaled back Chillout, back to Trance, and ending with some more Chillout to wrap things up. So the album is definitely built upon an effective design that enables everything to flow rather nicely.
As for the actual tracks, well, I found them to generally all be a shade above mediocre. There's an abundance of quality in each of them, but nothing terribly groundbreaking, and very little that has you reaching for a second listen. Almost every track on this album gives vocals (both male and female) center stage, and in most cases, if they're not syrupy sweet, they're just plain tolerable at best.
That said, the highlights on this album are actually the Chillout tracks. Solar Stone's 'Afterhours' productions (of which seem to exist in small numbers) are my favorite to come from the duo, and even though it's just a solo project now, there still exists that Solar Stone Afterhours charm to the Chillout found here, especially Slave and The Last Defeat (though my promo copy seemed to cut out most of Slave).
Mowatt certainly demonstrates a great deal of potential here, but this album ultimately lands on 3 out of 5 stars for me.
narcism
paradox can u confirm if this is on the album???
AustralianGQ
ive heard about half the tracks so far and i think its a great album! solarstone rules!
Paradox Lost
quote:
Originally posted by narcism
paradox can u confirm if this is on the album???
Yup. It's 4Ever (track 9).
narcism
quote:
Originally posted by Paradox Lost
Yup. It's 4Ever (track 9).
