A new chapter in the Pure Trance story begins.
Tracklist.
01. Orkidea – XP100
02. TasteXperience featuring Lisa White – Frustration (Glenn Morrison Remix)
03. Kev Wright & Jay Storic – From Beyond
04. Obie Dick – Foreplay
05. AUTOFLOWER – Wallflower
06. Hyperbolic Function – For Your Love
07. metakomplex & Orkidea – Dream of You
08. Eelke Kleijn – Lately
09. Obie Fernandez – Naked
10. Delerium – Innocente [Falling In Love] (DJ Tiësto Remix)
11. Novacode – Broken Soul
12. VADM – Space
13. Solarstone & Orkidea – Slowmotion VII
14. Mr. Sam vs. Fred Baker present As One – Forever Waiting (Jamie Baggotts Remix)
15. Pico Boulevard – Everybody’s Nobody
16. Dual 56 – Another Place
17. Summa – Awakening the Spirit (Solarstone Edit)
18. B FROM E – Amnesia
19. Jamie Baggotts & Marc West – The End
20. Solarstone & Orkidea – Slowmotion (Allende Remix)
21. Tre Turner – Scottish Piano (Close Proximity Trance Mix)
22. Solarstone – Dream Sequence
23. Super-Frog Saves Tokyo – Clarion
24. Trancendent – Empyrean
25. UNPAVED – Take Me Home
26. Sophie Moleta x Orkidea x Lowland – Fall Into Love
27. Andrew Shepherd – Visualization
28. Brandt Hoff – Dream About You
29. Solarstone – Zero Hours
30. Tekara featuring Lucy Cotter – Breathe in You (Tekara’s M&M Dub)
31. Allende – The Weight
32. Markus Schulz – Forgotten Element
33. Solarstone vs. Sirocco – Destination (Effen Remix)
34. Luke Terry & Chris Johnson pres. Taisaku – Fuyu
35. Micha Mendel – Future Peace (Solarstone Pure Mix)
36. SØNIN x Orkidea – Avril
37. Jonas Steur – For Eternity
38. Orkidea – Stop The Rock
39. Young Parisians featuring Ben Lost – Jump the Next Train (Omar Sherif Remix)
40. Matti Laamanen – Flakes
41. Solarstone & Susie Ledge – Haunt Me (Dub Mix)
42. Peter Steele – Moment of Truth
43. Solarstone – Energy Field
44. Orkidea – Beautiful (Bryan Kearney Rework)
LIMITED EDITION 3LP SAMPLER Tracklist.
A1. Orkidea – XP100 (7:59)
A2. VADM – Space (6:46)
B1. Super-Frog Saves Tokyo – Clarion (8:43)
B2. Eelke Kleijn – Lately (6:56)
C1. Solarstone – Zero Hours (8:45)
C2. SØNIN x Orkidea – Avril (6:11)
D1. Micha Mendel – Future Peace (Solarstone Pure Mix) (9:39)
D2. Jonas Steur – For Eternity (5:35)
E1. Peter Steele – Moment of Truth (8:06)
E2. Orkidea – Beautiful (Bryan Kearney Rework) (6:08)
F1. Solarstone – Energy Field (7:10)
F2. Luke Terry & Chris Johnson present Taisaku – Fuyu (6:58)
Having solo-helmed the milestone tenth ‘Pure Trance’ outing, Solarstone reflected at the time that it was: “a transitional moment’ for the series. A natural temporal point, where one ‘chapter’ would close and another open.” And that new “chapter” is where we find ourselves today.
At their core, ‘Pure Trance’ albums has always had an ethos – something seeded in them from the very start. However, that culture Rich felt was: “achievable, but not yet fully achieved”. Specifically, it’s that of creating the albums the ‘Global Underground’ way or by following the ‘Northern Exposure’ trail. A commitment to compiling and mixing so detailed, so thought through and so experience-led, that it enshrines the 20/20 club experience as close to 1:1 as is humanly possible.
So, to finally make that flesh, he returned the series to the drawing board.
The first (and in all likelihood most significant) hurdle was getting its essence as-live-as-live gets. To that, a heaving February Saturday at London’s Fabric supplied it a trancefixing backdrop. There, every in-the-moment blend, fader glide, filter release and EQ twist, and every reciprocal crowd whistle and cheer as ‘XI’ was laid down was caught in the wild.
To achieve that elevates to the highest level the planning and coordination a DJ + team must undertake. Or as is the case here, DJs, plural. ‘XI’ marks the first time that ‘Pure Trance’ has recalled one of its former co-mixers. Closing the circle between this release and the very first Pure Trance is producer/DJ/composer Orkidea. On their very first meeting, he and Solarstone bonded over a shared love of ‘mixed-live’ compilations, so when it came time for ‘Pure Trance’ to take that route, the co-mixer selection pretty much made itself.
One aspect that’s not changed with the onset of ‘XI’ is (naturally!) the stylistic makeup of its sonics. Music from the new, the established and the establishment abounds, along with exclusive 2026 monsters-in-the-making and underground weapons aplenty. Judicious bring-backs for a smattering of imaginatively selected classics are also onboard, along with an absolute wealth of new Solarstone and Orkidea material.
Orkidea recalls that: “most of the tracks on Global Underground, Northern Exposure, Renaissance and the like had already been released by the time the albums came out. People fell in love with them through the compilations. It’s when you present tracks in a mix that they’re heard differently”. Solarstone picks up “In fact, they often don’t sound as good without the other elements of another record on top. It’s one of the aspects we paid most attention to on ‘PTXI’; there are some truly memorable ‘one plus one equals three moments’ on there!”
Weighing in at an unbroken 4+ hours digitally (*also available in triple disc and triple vinyl editions), ‘Pure Trance’s trip is an odyssey in everything but name. ‘XI’s opening tranche is where many of its more underground artists and records are couched. That said there’s still early deck-service paid to Tiësto’s rework of Delerium’s ‘Innocente’ and Glenn Morrison’s take on TasteXperience’s ‘Frustration’! Obie Fernandez’s ‘Naked’ and ‘Foreplay’ from Obie Dick (no relation on either count) gives off a distinct later-night progressive vibe. All smoked-out synths, low-riding bass and slow-fuse tension. ‘Broken Soul’ from Novacode and VADM’s ‘Space’ meanwhile stiffen the mix-stance by degrees, carving a tougher groove into ‘XI’s foothills.
‘Pure Trance XI’ bids a majestic farewell to its first hour with Solarstone & Orkidea’s (just released) ‘Slowmotion VII’ and Jamie Baggotts’ remix of Mr Sam vs Fred Baker’s achingly beautiful ‘Forever Waiting’. From there the mix departs the cooler hinterlands, subtly pivoting from the progressive-trance backfoot to a more trance-progressive front.
No coincidence then that this is where you’ll find the most concentrated seams of new Solarstone, Orkidea and close associates’ material. Cherry-picked from last year’s ‘innermost’ album, ‘dream sequence’ slipstreams into the more technotic throb of Super-Frog Saves Tokyo’s ‘Clarion’. Solarstone’s ‘Zero Hours’ and Allende’s studio-fresh remix of Rich & Tapio’s original ‘Slowmotion’ generates more of that flow, before Orkidea x’s with Sophie Moleta and Lowland on the beautifully suspended ‘Fall Into Love’.
As ‘Pure Trance XI’ passes its 2hr mix-marker, it again subtly adjusts its angle of attack, heralding classic sonics from Matt Darey’s Tekara (‘Breathe in You’) and Matti Laamanen’s mesmeric ‘Flakes’. ‘Haunt Me’, the most recent pairing between Rich & Susie Ledge, gives it a vocally-driven and emotionally charged element, while Solarstone’s ‘Energy Field’ adds more kinetic and propulsive aspects. That sharpens the mix’s forward momentum for a final time, allowing Bryan Kearney firestorm-like spin on Orkidea’s ‘Beautiful to deliver it a truly epic finale.
In electrifying form ‘XI’ launches the next phase in ‘Pure Trance’s fantastically storied, fifteen year history. It’s released on June 12 and is available HERE.
PTXI will be available as 3CD, Digital Format & Limited Edition Vinyl Sampler.
A deep dive into the making of Pure Trance XI
Join Solarstone and Orkidea for a deep dive into the making of the upcoming Solarstone & Orkidea present Pure Trance XI – Live in London. In this 30-minute interview, they discuss the full creative process behind PTXI — from track selection and A&R scouting to building a seamless four-hour journey.
For the first time in the series’ history, a Pure Trance album has been created entirely within a live club environment, preserving every transition, atmosphere shift and dancefloor moment exactly as it happened. Recorded as a four-hour live mix in London, Pure Trance XI captures the energy and emotion of the dancefloor in real time across 44 tracks, featuring brand new music, hidden gems and exclusive remixes.
The duo share stories about collaborating remotely, hunting for hidden gems, working with producers across the scene, and why they chose to capture the mix live instead of in the studio. They also talk about the evolution of the Pure Trance series, the challenges of compiling a modern trance album, and the philosophy behind creating emotional long-form DJ journeys.
Whether you’re a longtime Pure Trance follower or curious about the process behind crafting a compilation of this scale, this conversation offers a rare behind-the-scenes look into one of the genre’s most respected series.
Slowmotion locks in it's seventh this month.
For Solarstone, ‘Slowmotion’ was supposed to be just-so-simple … Hop over to Helsinki. Do a track with Orkidea. Fly home … and release it.
Here we all are though, running up on twenty years later, and somehow one ‘single’ single has turned into the longest running release chain in electronic music history.
While Binary Finary brought ‘1998’ to a close at ‘2000’, Mauro was done ‘Lizard’-ing by the time ‘Komodo’ came around and Dave Clarke rested his ‘Red’ series at ‘3’, ‘Slowmotion’s numbers have just kept climbing. Key to that, is the relationship between Solarstone and Orkidea, and key to that is the connexion in their sonic ethics, life, the universe and (pretty much) everything.
More conventionally ‘Slowmotion’ releases do tend to be hung off numbers in an album series though. ‘Electronic Architecture 4’, ‘Pure Progressive 1’, Rich’s numerically morse coded ‘One’, ‘Two’ & ‘Three’ artist LP series… and, it almost goes without saying … ‘Pure Trance’ers too. Now surpassing even Jean Michelle-Jarre’s fabled ‘Oxygene’ singles (six if we’re counting), ‘Slowmotion VII’ enters, not incidentally, just as the pair gear up for ‘XI’ – ‘Pure Trance’s monumental eleventh instalment.
The relationship between ‘Slowmotion’s title and its music has always been onomatopoeic. Rich at his most progressive, Tapio at his houseiest, and the pair together in their most ‘Northern Exposure’-esque of modes. ‘VII’s music is as deeply embedded in the nocturnal as ever. Glacially flowing, narcotic-hypnotics, all with a salt-sea-air cinematic to their harmonies. Every liquid transition over its runtime coming less ‘mixed’ and more dissolved – its chords languidly pooling, ready to feed ‘Slowmotion’s next chug of momentum.
Starting to become numeric enough to warrant an album of its own (!), ‘Slowmotion’ locks in its seventh this month.
Mir Omar delivers a beautiful 11+ minute remix of 'Late Summer Fields'
This fan-favourite from 2009 featuring Rich Solarstone himself on vocals, has received the remix treatment many times over the year, from artists including Ferry Corsten & Forerunners. Now New York’s prog-tastic maestro Mir Omar (onedotsixtwo, UV, Droid9) delivers a beautiful +11 minute remix which captures the warm & fuzzy emotion of the original with on-point modern production and warm, emotional energy.
'Haunt Me' - the new collab with Susie Ledge that locks you in on first listen.
Bold prediction perhaps, but we’ll say it anyway: ‘Haunt Me’s a one-and-done — the kind of record that locks you in on first listen and plays on loop in the mind, long after the speakers have gone quiet.
In that instant catch, there’s a certain irony too, as, for the first time in his career, Solarstone delivers back-to-back single releases featuring the same vocalist. After December’s ‘star’ (drawn from his 2025 ‘innermost’ sessions), it’s clear, with Susie Ledge, that he knew he was onto something special.
She picks the mic back up for ‘Haunt Me’ — and true to its title … she absolutely will.
Ledge’s song explores the lingering imprint of love on memory, where physical distance is eclipsed by a closeness felt only in the mind. Through echoic metaphor, her words capture the intensity of absence —a lingering meditation on connections that endure beyond separation.
Setting her contemplations to melody, Solarstone answers it with a production that’s compelling but disciplined. The energy’s all there: striking, striving percussion and purposeful bass — yet his riffs are measured, never overreaching, and allow Susie’s voice to lead his synths. It walks the line between understatement and ascendance, keeping the energy high while the feels stay front and centre.
A track built not on spectacle, but on substance, with ‘Haunt Me’, Rich and Susie prove that subtlety can still move dancefloor mountains.
Tracklist
01. Solarstone & Susie Ledge – Haunt Me (Original Mix)
02. Solarstone & Susie Ledge – Haunt Me (Extended Mix)
XiJaro & Pitch remix fan favourite 'Once'
Originally released in 2015, ‘Once’ was Solarstone’s collaboration with IKO (famed for their ‘Heart of Stone’ contribution to the Twilight movie saga). A standalone single between Solarstone’s ‘Pure’ and ‘One’ album projects, ‘Once’ has become a firm fan favourite.
Now, for 2026, the track is reimagined by a duo perfectly suited to rework a Solarstone production: XiJaro & Pitch. Their remix innovates while staying true to the essence of the original. Road-tested at Dreamstate, A State Of Trance, and Luminosity Beach Festival, this uplifting trance reinterpretation is set to become one of the defining vocal-trance releases of 2026.
The Solar, ‘star’ (and Starburst!) planets are aligning for ‘innermost’’s latest.
An uptick in the upbeat, a lift to the lively and a swell of the spirited: with the seasons’ shift, Solarstone vibe has gotten itself locked in the ‘up’ position of late! First came last month’s floor-entrancing ‘Memoryland’ – a release that picked out the innerspace between dream-state and total recall … while also arriving with something mother-clubbing magnificent!Now we have ‘star’ – which has Rich dipping back into his ‘innermost’ album trove.
That said though … that ‘star’ is not this ‘star’!
Originally conceived as an atmospherically laidback “Sabres Of Paradise’s ‘Smokebelch’ meets Enya” number, the track began its 4/4 metamorphosis when singer Susie Ledge began ghosting its circuitry. Now adding further club weight, Solarstone’s tapped Leon Bolier to create a Starburst rework, that boosts it that much later into late-night.
It’s half criminal and half-astonishing that, despite their similar timelines, the pair haven’t shared studio space before. They make amends here though, with a production that fair explodes with drumatic orchestral kicks, sky raking synths, and an end-of-the-night paced bass. That in turn projects Susie Ledge’s Gaelic-tinged (and irrepressibly sing-along-catchy!) song into a whole other galaxy.
Too early to say “anthem” !? Maybe, but the Solar, ‘star’ (and Starburst!) planets are very much aligning for ‘innermost’’s latest here.
Tracklist
01. Solarstone & Susie Ledge – star (Solarstone & Leon Bolier Starburst Mix – 7” Mix)
02. Solarstone & Susie Ledge – star (Solarstone & Leon Bolier Starburst Mix – 12” Mix)
A floor-rushing hit of adrenaline.
Within an artist’s range, there’s a lot to be said for contrast. You’d be hard pressed to find two more opposite ends of a spectrum than ‘innermost’, Solarstone’s 2025 artist album – and what he’s presenting us with, as the year enters its last quarter.
While ‘innermost’ found Richard at his most musically introspective and lyrically heart-on-sleeve, ‘Memoryland’ flips multiple POVs to run 2025 out with a floor-rushing hit of adrenaline.
As he was writing ‘Memoryland’, Solarstone took inspiration from a single word.
Reality.
The fabric between a long-recollected memory and a lived experience can, at times, begin to diverge. ‘Memoryland’ became the idiom the artist adopted for what lies within that conflicted crack. Not rooted in back-glancing nostalgia, but in what he sees as “the occasional illusion of recall,” the track draws a sonic dreamscape, where remembered and abstract moments begin, inevitably, to intertwine.
Driven by crisp percussion, rolling basslines, and a synthery that’s constantly radiating outwards, ‘Memoryland’ uncannily captures that paradox. Melodic arpeggios rise and fall like reminiscences, while its layered pads and production rhythmics rub at the lines between the actual and the imagined.
Repositioning after ‘innermost’ to point the Solarstone mirror back out at the world, ‘Memoryland’ arrives today through all good sales and streaming channels.
Tracklist:
01. Solarstone – ‘Memoryland’ (Original Mix)
02. Solarstone – ‘Memoryland’ (Extended Mix)
A homage to a place I call home.
Solarstone (Richard Mowatt) recently released ‘innermost’ – his most personal and innovative album to date. Unusually, in the world of trance, Rich sometimes performs the vocals for his songs himself – previously on ‘Late Summer Fields’, ‘Shards’, ‘Complicated’, ‘Lovers’ and most recently on ‘Over the Mountains’ – a key moment from ‘innermost’. Says Rich: “The lyrics from ‘over the mountains’ were based upon a phrase I would gently whisper to my eldest son, when he was a child, to help him fall asleep – so it’s a deeply intimate record to me. I was born in Ireland, but grew up in rural Wales and this small, beautiful country is where my heart belongs. I recorded a Welsh version of ‘over the mountains’ entitled ‘dros y mynyddoedd’ as a homage to the place I call home”.
Tracklist:
01. Solarstone – ‘dros y mynyddoedd’ (7” Mix)
02. Solarstone – ‘dros y mynyddoedd’ (12” Mix)
A goosebump-inducing 136bpm Pure Mix.
Solarstone is back in full-throttle mode with a stunning Pure Mix of this beauty by Bucharest’s Micha Mendel (aka Men-D). The original Drum & Bass version provided a clutch of magical ingredients to fuel this rousing Balearic-tinged trance epic, which now – thanks to Solarstone’s goosebump-inducing 136bpm production – has hallmarks of those unforgettable Amnesia nights stamped all over it. Vive La Trance!