Spring ‘26 interview with Solarstone:
Rich: “I’ve definitely got my mojo back!”
Hi Rich, it’s been a while since our last interview – how are you doing?
Rich: “I’m not too bad, thanks – which is a typical Brit answer (despite my being Irish). Literally translated as ‘things are alright, I could complain but no one listens anyway’.”
You’re hot off a few days of touring – how were the US and Canada?
Rich: “I had my first Thursday, Friday, Saturday run of shows for a very long time and although loving it, I did also find it exhausting. When I travel West the time zone difference hits me hard, trying to fit in sleep between the flights & shows can be a challenge. The train from Montreal to Toronto was fab – if I ever get the chance to travel another way than flying, I take it. The open-to-close in Toronto was great, Bunker is a wicked club – low ceiling, 250 capacity, packed crowd and the best DJ booth. Montreal was ok, it was at reputedly one of the best clubs in the world – Stereo – it was a good vibe, but Fedde le Grande was on before me, so it was a mixed crowd. Denver at Vinyl was pretty good for a last-minute show, lovely people.”
You’re not doing as much touring as you used to, for obvious reasons, having a little one. Is it hard to make sure you’re not overdoing it after all and to guard yourself from a busy schedule?
Rich: “When my eldest son Oscar was little, I was away a lot – I feel that I missed out on a lot of things with him because of that. I needed to do a lot more then because it was a point in my career where I had to go full throttle. Now I am older with another young son I don’t mind being less busy in terms of shows, weekends are special with young children, it’s a magical time and they change so much – I don’t want to miss out on things if I can help it. Of course, I still love the shows, delivering the Pure Trance message, but I’m a bit choosier on which shows I do – how far I travel and for how long.”
What about studio work? Is creativity flowing in the Solarstone studio right now?
Rich: “Absolutely, I’ve definitely got my mojo back in terms of club music. My ‘innermost’ album was a slight departure from what a lot of people know me for, but it was important to me to make that record. Now I’m back into the driving club sound, faster bpms, heavier production. For the first time in ages, I have a lot of new music in the bank (checks ‘unreleased’ folder… 3 x Pure Mixes, 4 Solarstone tracks, 3 under other aliases and there’s a stack of remixes by other artists of my back catalogue) because I’ve had a bit more time in the studio to create it, so I’ll definitely have more of a ‘presence’ this year.”
“I wanted PTXI to mark a new chapter.”
This year, Valentine’s Day wasn’t only the day of love, but also a day of Pure. You and Orkidea recorded the Pure Trance XI mix at Fabric, during Liberation London V13. So, tell us…how did it go!?
Rich: “Oh it was fabulous! We worked on preparing this album for well over a year. I love playing with Tapio, it’s a really fluid and natural combination. I’m not a fan of ‘back-to-back’ sets generally, it can look and sound contrived when some DJs do it, but Tapio is so much fun and such a pro and we largely share the same taste in music that I always look forward to it.”
We all know the amount of time and preparations these sorts of mixes take – months and months of trying to find the right tracks. How did that go this time? Any producers you asked specifically?
Rich: “Yes, months and months and months. Working remotely was a challenge for both of us; we spent an inordinate amount of time trying to get the people behind Rekordbox to fix their ‘shared playlist’ function – which never ended up working. So, in the end I flew to Helsinki to get the track list finally wrapped up after around a year of scouting for music. I signed a huge amount of music for this project, some of which ended up coming out as singles, so some of those didn’t make the final PTXI mix. I don’t want to give away too much of the track list, but several of my favourite producers delivered incredible tracks, particularly Allende (Finland’s best-kept-secret when it comes to Trance) and I discovered some amazing new talents as well along the way.”
So, what made it different this time, is recording it live. What’s the reason you and Tapio chose to go for that, rather than creating it in the bubble and calm of your own studios?
Rich: “The ‘live’ element was something we decided at the very start. Tapio was my partner on the very first Pure Trance compilation back in 2015 and I wanted to work with him again on PTXI, but in a different way. All the previous Pure Trance albums were mixed in the studio by me and my guest artists, and I wanted PTXI to mark a new chapter. Labels just don’t do live DJ albums much anymore (if they do, they are often ‘fake’ – a studio mix with ‘crowd noise’ dubbed underneath) and when I proposed the Live concept to Tapio he literally got goosebumps at the thought. A 4-hour completely live club mix of brand-new tracks, forgotten classics and some recently released gems that went under the radar. Tapio pointed out to me quite early on that many of our favourite ‘classic’ compilations, like ‘Northern Exposure’, were actually mainly compiled of already-released music, so I felt less bothered about all of the music on PTXI being completely new. It also gave us more freedom in what we used. Tapio sourced some great music for this album. Barney Broomer – who recorded Tiesto’s ‘Magik’ series of live albums – recorded it live for us at Fabric in London. We had some proper technical issues on the night, but we’ve captured the vibe of the club in the recording, without it overtaking the beautiful music itself. It was a huge labour of love to get all the music in and then to program it into a proper 4-hour journey.”
You guys did a 4.5-hour set – did you pick out a certain moment to start recording PTXI, based on the crowd? Picked records based on the moment? Or how did that process go?
Rich: “The plan was to warm up the room and start recording about 1 hour in, but the room filled up almost instantly, so we began recording the album about 20 minutes in. It was all carefully planned over several months. It wasn’t ‘spontaneous’ – that’s what we do as DJs in a regular set, you can pick and choose what you play and when – this was a completely different thing. We know what works in a club, we’ve been doing it for about 50 years between us, so we followed the plan and it worked.”
Anything you can share about its release date? Spring ’26 is upon us! 😉
Rich: “At the time of writing this we’re looking at the end of May 2026. The artwork and packaging are almost done so we’re heading into production shortly.”
“There is always a stack of brilliant music lined up for the labels.”
Before diving deeper into the whole PTXI thing – we’ll get to that once it’s out – let’s focus on the label! We’ve got a few biggies coming up, right?!
Rich: “The labels are going great. For anyone who doesn’t already know, I have several labels. Pure Trance, Pure Progressive (for the music that is a bit deeper), Pure Trance NEON for the more in-you-face slamming stuff, Electronic Architecture for more leftfield music, Pure Breaks for breaks-driven trance and some avant-garde breaks stuff, and I’ve also recently re-acquired my old label ‘Solaris’ from my ex-partner in the label, so I have plans for that too next year. There is always a stack of brilliant music lined up for the labels and I’m also looking at remixing some of our best release with new artists. Coming up in the immediate future are a wonderful record on Pure Trance from Julia Eliza which has touches of 80s Synthwave to it, and also Mir Omar has made a beautifully deep remix of my track ‘Late Summer Fields’ on Pure Progressive. I have ‘past_present’ by Jackob Roenald forthcoming on NEON, which is understated techy trance at its best, and also more techno goodness from Super-Frog Saves Tokyo called ‘Scream’ on Electronic Architecture.”
Is there any act or artist who has surprised you most this year? Any producers who are always welcome?
Rich: “I wouldn’t say ‘surprised’, but Singapore’s Effen is always welcome on my labels, whenever he sends a demo I know I’m going to sign it before even listening to it. His latest ‘Cadence Theory’ really is next level in terms of its musicality. Peter Steele sent me a bumper pack of 4 demos recently, all of which I signed’ He’s pumping out some great music.”
Who do you think are the ones to watch for 2026? Any new talent we should be aware about?
Rich: “There has been an influx of great new talent so far this year; Jesh Bargota and Blackromeo are two artists who are doing great things, they even got support from Tiesto now that he is ‘back to trance’.”
We’ve also seen the release of a few remixes of your older tracks, including ‘The Last Defeat PT 1’ and there’s new ones ahead for ‘Late Summer Fields’ as well. What’s the thought behind these updates – did you feel they needed a new timestamp?
Rich: “Whenever an artist that I like & admire reaches out to me and asks if they can remix something from my back catalogue, I usually say ‘go for it’ – when they love my music it’s a great position to start from. ‘Forcing’ a remix of something you’re not bothered about simply to satisfy a label rarely ends well. What Obie Fernandez did with ‘The Last Defeat PT 1’ was so inspiring, that fab D&B section in the middle – wow!”
We do miss the Producer Talk series, we loved the in-depth interviews and banter. Will there be a new one coming up soon? Anyone in particular left on your wish list?
Rich: “I’m glad you asked, I wrapped a new Producer Talk with John 00 Fleming only yesterday. He’s such an insightful guy, we went pretty deep into the science of DJing, and I hope it didn’t get too nerdy. You may be surprised how many requests I get from artists who’d like to be interviewed, I really should do more. The thing is that all these ‘extra-curricular’ activities distract from my time in the studio! I don’t have a wish list as such, these are all people that I am friends with, so we have a certain rapport.”
Spring is here, summer’s ahead! What do the next couple of weeks, or months, look like for you? What are you looking forward to mostly?
Rich: “I’m looking forward to the weather warming up so I can get back out running & on my road bike. My 5K runs basically ended when the rain started. As for shows, there’s a fair bit in the calendar; I’m off to China in a couple of weeks with Orkidea for a PTXI show – that’s together with the Pure Trance China team which should be good. May is fairly busy with the Danny Stubbs memorial event on the 3rd (that’s with a bunch of DJs who knew Danny, including Tilt & Paul Oakenfold), then I’m off to Malta the following week for Rong, and then Godskitchen in Birmingham. I also have the Godskitchen tour of Australia in July. I said I’d never go back because of the horrible flight, but my arm got twisted. I’m actually really looking forward to that one now, since I got used to the idea. As for music, I’m working on something new with IKO, something with Lostly and there are a couple of other collabs in the pipeline too. It’s all good!”
Thanks for the interview, Rich, keep it Pure!
Rich: “Always a pleasure!”