Biography.
From scene founding father to ringleader and flag-bearer of the Pure Trance movement, Solarstone (producer, composer & DJ Richard Mowatt) enduring influence stretches back almost as far as the genre itself. Releases like ‘Solarcoaster’, ‘The Calling’ and ‘Seven Cities’ are all benchmark classics of its pre-millennial period. The latter track – among the first of the Balearic trance anthems – has been re-released 3 times and now sold in excess of ½ million copies.
Remixed by Armin van Buuren amongst others, its instantly recognizable sunset/sunrise-sound legacy is still heard in tracks today. With the albums ‘RainStarsEternal’, ‘Touchstone’, ‘Pure’ , ‘One’ , ‘island’, and most recently his most personal album to date, ‘innermost’, he’s also released a sextet of critically revered long players.
Solarstone has long brought his sound to some of the most famous clubs, arenas and festivals on the planet. In Europe, those have come to include Tomorrowland, Luminosity Beach Festival, Cream Ibiza, Creamfields, A State Of Trance & Global Gathering, whilst further afield he’s rocked TomorrowWorld, EDC Las Vegas, Dreamstate, Ultra Music Festival, and numerous others.
Pure Trance: Having championed trance’s true nature from his very first release, the last decade has seen Solarstone push its origin sound – almost singlehandedly – back to the top of the genre’s agenda. Through his gospel of #PureTrance – modernizing the genre’s heart, whilst ring-fencing its soul – he caught the disposition of the scene with zeitgeist timing. Within its first year, Solarstone’s ideology of Pure Trance had developed into a bona fide musical movement. It’s one which has been captured by a major a mix-compilation series, worldwide Pure Trance club and festival shows, four record labels & its weekly radio show.
Now standing at eleven volumes, the Solarstone Presents Pure Trance series has seen Solarstone team up with co-mixing likeminds including Orkidea, Giuseppe Ottaviani, Bryan Kearney, Gai Barone, Sneijder, Forerunners, Robert Nickson, Factor B, Kristina Sky, Lostly and Stoneface & Terminal to mix-comp-define the movement’s sound. On the compilation series, DJ Mag said: “Pure Trance has established itself as the genre’s new bedrock… and a firmer one, few could wish for”. Having now touched every electronic music capital, the Pure Trance tour has sold-out shows in spots including Miami, Ibiza, Amsterdam, New York, Los Angeles and Sydney.
Pure Trance Radio is the latest incarnation of Richard’s long-running, widely syndicated radio show. Its weekly 90 minutes-long format includes features like the Progressive and #WeLikeItPure Selections, Not The Kind of Thing We Usually Play, the Big Tune and the Chill Out Moment. Pure Trance Radio is now broadcast across some 30+ FM & Internet stations to a listenership now in excess of 8 million. Receiving its first airing on every Wednesday at 19:00 CET on Twitch, the spring of 2024 saw it reach its landmark 400th show.
With the launch of Pure Trance Recordings & its sub-labels Pure Progressive, Pure Trance NEON and Pure Breaks, the Pure Trance label group has risen to a position as one of the best sellers on Beatport. In partnership with esteemed Dutch music house Black Hole Recordings, it brought a label platform to the movement’s most gifted music makers. Its discography includes work from M.I.K.E. Push, Robert Nickson, Factor B, Gai Barone, Sneijder, Orkidea, Basil O’Glue, Forerunners, Lostly, and Slam Duck.
Solarstone – The Music: In 2012, following the release ‘RainStarsEternal’ and ‘Touchstone’ albums, Solarstone released ‘Pure’. A reaction to the ever-greater federalisation of trance’s sound, he used the album as a means of sonically clarifying his position. It spawned seven singles, including ‘The Spell’ (“a revelation” – EDM Magazine), ‘Fireisland’ (with Aly & Fila), its title track, as well as ‘Falcons’ with Giuseppe Ottaviani (a MIXMAG Tune of the Month), ‘Jewel’, ‘Please’ and ‘Lovers’. ‘Pure’ became the birth point for the Pure Trance movement.
2014 to 2016 saw a clutch of additional hits including ‘Once’ (with IKO), ‘Nothing But Chemistry Here’, ‘Shield’, ‘Lost Hearts’, ‘Infatuation’, ‘Fata Morgana’ (w/Gai Barone) and ‘Herald’ arrived, elevating Solarstone’s profile to the international DJ A-List.
They were followed in spring of 2017 by the 8-track album ‘. – – – -’. Ciphered in Morse code, it was Richard’s enigmatically minimalistic encouragement to fans to look deeper into what it was they were seeing & hearing. Its debut single, the 11-minute odyssey ‘A State Of Mind’, was called “lavish”, “hypnotic” and “epic” by DJ Mag, who further stated that the track was “trance at its timeless best”.
Widely praised as a standalone item, its ultimate purpose was yet to be fully clarified. With one less dash, but an extra Morse dot, one album became two in April 2018 with the release of ‘ . . – – -‘. From shocking pink, we go into the blue: again made up of eight pieces of music, trading between instrumental compositions and vocal ones.
In 2019 Solarstone released the third and concluding long player in the series ‘. . . – ‘ but also the album works as they were always intended, united together as ‘One’. The culmination of a project that now comprises 27 pieces of music, delivered over a 3-album/4-year arc – all heralded by many a meaningful dot and dash. With the first two long-players respectively marked as ‘deep’ and ‘uplifting’, it was clear at its earliest production stage that this would be the ‘collaboratory’ one. That’s born out by its extensive list of co-producers, writers and singer/songwriters. The album features team-ups with fellow studio-heads including Robert Nickson, Orkidea, Lostly, Future Disciple, Gabriel & Dresden, Activa, and Gai Barone. Further it’s afforded Richard the opportunity to re-team with Julie Scott and Betsie Larkin – two of the voices behind some of his most applauded contemporary work.
In 2020, ‘island’ was released. A lockdown album’ by any other name, and a love letter to his beloved island, the one place he yearned to be: Ibiza. The album spanned several singles including ‘Island’, ‘Restless 4 am’ and ‘When I Dream’.
In 2025, Solarstone released his most personal album yet with ‘innermost’. On the album, Richard says: “Good music demands that you push yourself, and the best of it also forces you to take risks and I’m more than aware that ‘innermost’ inherently carries some of the latter. In its native form, this is not a club album. I believe that area is better addressed by my recent singles ‘(Shards’, ‘Hope’, ‘Sovereign’ ,‘Thinking Of You’, and so forth), and the Pure Trance albums”.. That leaves latter-day Solarstone artist albums more open to explore …to range, so the clubbier tracks that do exist on ‘innermost’ are woven into a broader sonic texture.”
Electronic Architecture: The Pure Trance series aside, Solarstone’s also the helmsman of the highly successful mix-compilation project Electronic Architecture. Born from his longstanding love of pop art, its first edition won immediate acclaim for its imaginative concept. It was hailed as “a magical blend of music, art and design” by Tilllate Magazine, a “genuine gem” by DJ Mag and in 2010 was nominated for an IDMA award in the Best Full Length Mix category. A progressive-trance Yin to the ‘Pure Trance’ Yang, two years later Electronic Architecture² (Or Electronic Architecture Squared) was released to similarly high praise, with MIXMAG’s giving it an Album of the Month award and saying it “captured the essence of what we all love about trance”. Triple-Disc compendium EA³ – released April 2014 – won further critical acclaim with EDM Magazine calling it “modern Trance perfection”. After a 7-year hiatus, the fourth epic ‘Electronic Architecture’ was released in May 2021, timelessly picking up exactly where ‘EA3’ left off – whilst also giving us a highly desirable musical anchor to the last decade. Tonally & thematically, ‘EA4’ owns the equidistant middle ground between the ‘Northern Exposure’ and ‘Renaissance’ albums. Never seeing the electronica-extremes of the former, nor quite as floor-intense as the latter, their progressivism hits the perfect median between.
Solarstone – The DJ: Solarstone behind a pair of CDJs is something that every electronic dance music lover, planet-wide, should witness at least once in their clubbing lifetimes. Worldwide his Pure Trance shows have captured the imagination of hundreds of thousands in electronic music hotspots like Miami, Ibiza & Amsterdam. Since learning the craft in the late 90s, he’s played some of the most renowned names (inc. Tomorrowland, A State Of Trance, Dreamstate, Creamfields, Ultra Music Festival & numerous others) and spun alongside the worlds best-known DJs many times over. Richard’s worldwide travels have also taken him to some of the biggest events and festivals across the globe, as well as some of the most remote. Over the years these have included islands in the Philippines, bush parties in Australia and massive festivals in the heart of Brazil.
The Labels: over the course of his career, Solarstone has owned, co-owned and A&Rd many other successful labels. Included among them have been Touchstone Recordings Solaris Recordings, Deepblue, Molecule and Crashing Waves. At the start of 2009, Richard launched solarSwarm, an online community record label for die-hard Solarstone fans. In the summer of the same year his insatiable label morphed into solarSwarm Recordings. In a groundbreaking move solarSwarm became the world’s first social network record label.
Solarstone – Aliases & Collaborations: In order to showcase different musical perspectives & sounds, Richard has also recorded under a number of pseudonyms. In 2002 he initiated the 80’s-influenced Young Parisians outfit, who subsequently scored substantial club hits with ‘U Write the Rules’ and ‘Jump the Next Train’. The natural successor to Young Parisians, 2012 saw him reteam with Ben Lost & Dave Moth as Federation – a new band-based live act. Drawing on an even greater range of influences, from several decades, it was signed to Paul Oakenfold’s Perfecto Flouro and resulted in 4 Beatport top 10 charting singles. After a break of almost 10 years, the band released their debut album, F, in 2022.
Solarstone – The Remixes: Over the years Solarstone has always maintained a keen production/remix balance. He has worked on remixes for names like Royksopp (‘I Had This Thing’), Emma Hewitt (Children), Aly & Fila (‘The Other Shore’), Ferry Corsten (Gabriella’s Sky), Hurts (‘Blind’), London Grammar (‘Wasting My Young Years’) & Markus Schulz (‘Facedown’).