It’s been seven years – and some long ones at that – since Solarstone last designed and constructed an ‘Electronic Architecture’. While ‘EAs’ 1 thru ‘3′ maintained a regular release pulse, with each year that followed 2014, the series’ absence has been felt evermore acutely.
Aside from the pulsingly positive multi-coloured lights that emanate from within its cube, the ‘Architecture’ of the fourth ‘Architecture’ is visibly more brutalist & current-day resonant than its predecessors. Its musical remit though remains timelessly unchanged. Tonally & thematically, ‘EA4’ owns the equidistant middleground 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.
Despite being offered as a physical item (how could something this beautiful not!), digitally ‘Electronic Architecture 4’ has been devised as a start-through-finish listening experience. The new nonpareil of the kick-back-‘n-musically-trip encounter, its soundscape has few – if any – modern parallels.
Key as ever to ‘Electronic Architecture’s constitution are Solarstone’s own Reconstructions – eleven of which feature over the duration. Not remixes, re-edits or re-imaginings exactly, they are versions that bring incredible tracks into line with the series’ sonic ethic, as Richard does everything from tweak to wholesale reconfigure them to fit.
Timelessly picking up exactly where ‘EA3’ left off – whilst also giving us a highly desirable musical anchor to the last decade, the fourth epic ‘Electronic Architecture’ walks among us from May 14. Is the greatest mix-album of the year here already!? May just be… but there’s only one way to truly find out.
To buy, download or stream EA4 Click here.