As electronic music continues to sweep the North American continent with music that's becoming more commercial than ever before, the community has started to create a divide among them.With that said, some would argue staying optimistic in this climate is tough, but there are more established artists who like to see the positive gains from all of this. Rich "Solarstone" Mowatt is one of them. Despite the neglect trance music gets from the dance community, Solarstone still delivers a fresh and exciting experience for all electronic music lovers; new and old alike with his tour series named Pure Trance.THUMP Canada caught up with Solarstone before his Bal en Blanc set to discuss the current state of the trance genre and also what it means to play Pure Trance for the fans.THUMP: The last couple of times you visited Canada was the Waves of Trance boat cruise last summer and Pure Trance at MOD Club a couple of months ago.
Solarstone:I wear the Waves of Trance t-shirt a lot. I walk around with it on at the village I'm from and everyone is like "What's this?"What village are you from?
It's a village on the boarder of England and Wales.As mentioned before, Pure Trance was hosted at MOD Club in Toronto, what does Canada mean to you at this point?
I played in Vancouver in 2002 and since then I haven't been back to Canada for years. The whole Pure Trance thing has really caught on over here and the fans just really love it. You can tell they are hungry for something new so every event we have organized here has been amazing.The turnout is always good.
People are always comparing Canadians to Americans and Canadians seem to be more cool and passionate yet reserved about it. The Americans are a little bit more "arghhh" about it. I don't know how you would spell that out in the interview [laughs].Pure Trance has been successful essentially everywhere you've brought it to. What's next?
It's a building process; on one hand we're letting it grow organically and on the other, we're trying to maintain the momentum. We started doing small club events then expanding to festivals. Promoter awareness through the feedback they hear from other promoters and the Internet while building confidence to invest in the event also plays a factor. We are not forcing it, we are letting it grow. A lot of people are being introduced to electronic music through the EDM scene, maybe they are tired of that same old sound and Pure Trance just happened to be on the radar. A lot of people who come out are new to trance music; it's fresh and exciting.You bring some great talent with you to the events. Some of them include old school artists such as Orkidea, Giuseppe Ottaviani and newer talent such as Sneijder and Bryan Kearney.
The thing they all have in common is they're passionate about what they do. We look for people who stay true to their sound who don't compromise for what's trendy and fashionable.When scouting for talent, do any limitations from labels come up?
Not necessarily, but the main criteria of getting someone new on board is how popular they are and how many people they can bring to the event. We don't want people who had a few big records, we want someone who has been persistent and can repeat the success.What is your definition of trance music?
Trance is very compartmentalized. I've done a few gigs recently where other DJs on the line-up are called "trance DJs" but they play something very different. They can get away with it at a festival but in a club you want to take your patrons on a journey from the start to the finish of the night. That's what our events are all about. As far as the genre goes I think it's extremely healthy compared to a couple of years ago. It has been attacked by the other more fashionable genres of EDM, but in my opinion it's more valid because there is a melody.Giuseppe Ottaviani mentioned in another interview you can take a melody from pretty much any genre and it can be turned into trance music.
Yes, it's the melody.Do you think there is neglect for this music?
Trance always appears under the radar because the big magazines won't cover it; to me it's underground again.It has become its own thing at this point.
I think it's a good thing. The scene will continue to grow without the support of major magazines and a lot of the journalists look at the late '90s, where trance became a concrete thing which disappeared and they are the ones who latched on this idea that it wasn't a serious form of music anymore because it wasn't trying to be cool. They look past it, but they are the ones who are missing out and can't understand that this music is new, fresh and exciting. They are stuck in the past.Does the BPM define the genre?
It doesn't define Pure Trance at all. Orkidea did a little bit of a history of the music and when you look back, in the '70s where it began it wasn't about BPM at all. The fans tend to fall into little groups such as "Team 140" and it's a positive thing. Trance fans often attack other genres because they have been at the mercy of the music fashion police for such a long time and they feel like giving it back. I don't blame them at all; I do feel sorry for artists like W&W because they get shit on all the time, because they picked their path to be successful.Let's talk about artists who bring in elements from other styles of music into trance. Styles like breakbeat, dubstep and psychedelic trance. What is your stance on that?
Psytrance is back! I really started to notice with labels like Perfecto Records. This is why we do Pure Trance. Because it's different; I don't feel it's better or superior to anything else but simply an alternative to everything else. It's all about the feeling you get when you listen to it.How do you stay optimistic when you hear about this entire EDM explosion where everything is becoming more commercialized?
It's great because it is spreading the word about it and it's getting people into electronic music. People get into this music because of any DJ–be it Tiësto, Hardwell, myself and it can only be a good thing. There is far too much negativity from the people in the scene who are looking for problems; I mean why shouldn't Tiësto be able to play music that he loves to be a successful DJ? So what if he doesn't play trance anymore?That's true, people always talk about how they want the old W&W but there are other artists are available for them to discover.
I like what those guys do. They pack clubs all over the world. I spent some time with them in Australia during Stereosonic and talked about how they produce their music despite their tracks being only about five minutes long and only have a few elements in them, days and days are spent on creating those tracks for maximum impact.What does Solarstone mean?
I was contacted by a label and they told me they were doing the art work for one of my releases and we had 20 minutes to think of a name. I had a book laying around about ancient art and mythology that we threw in the air a few times and it fell on the page where there was some Egyptian hieroglyphic engraving on it that was called the "Solarstone."Ani is an electronic music advocate and loves soda water. Follow him on Twitter: @anihajderaj.
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Solarstone:I wear the Waves of Trance t-shirt a lot. I walk around with it on at the village I'm from and everyone is like "What's this?"What village are you from?
It's a village on the boarder of England and Wales.As mentioned before, Pure Trance was hosted at MOD Club in Toronto, what does Canada mean to you at this point?
I played in Vancouver in 2002 and since then I haven't been back to Canada for years. The whole Pure Trance thing has really caught on over here and the fans just really love it. You can tell they are hungry for something new so every event we have organized here has been amazing.The turnout is always good.
People are always comparing Canadians to Americans and Canadians seem to be more cool and passionate yet reserved about it. The Americans are a little bit more "arghhh" about it. I don't know how you would spell that out in the interview [laughs].Pure Trance has been successful essentially everywhere you've brought it to. What's next?
It's a building process; on one hand we're letting it grow organically and on the other, we're trying to maintain the momentum. We started doing small club events then expanding to festivals. Promoter awareness through the feedback they hear from other promoters and the Internet while building confidence to invest in the event also plays a factor. We are not forcing it, we are letting it grow. A lot of people are being introduced to electronic music through the EDM scene, maybe they are tired of that same old sound and Pure Trance just happened to be on the radar. A lot of people who come out are new to trance music; it's fresh and exciting.
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The thing they all have in common is they're passionate about what they do. We look for people who stay true to their sound who don't compromise for what's trendy and fashionable.When scouting for talent, do any limitations from labels come up?
Not necessarily, but the main criteria of getting someone new on board is how popular they are and how many people they can bring to the event. We don't want people who had a few big records, we want someone who has been persistent and can repeat the success.What is your definition of trance music?
Trance is very compartmentalized. I've done a few gigs recently where other DJs on the line-up are called "trance DJs" but they play something very different. They can get away with it at a festival but in a club you want to take your patrons on a journey from the start to the finish of the night. That's what our events are all about. As far as the genre goes I think it's extremely healthy compared to a couple of years ago. It has been attacked by the other more fashionable genres of EDM, but in my opinion it's more valid because there is a melody.Giuseppe Ottaviani mentioned in another interview you can take a melody from pretty much any genre and it can be turned into trance music.
Yes, it's the melody.
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Trance always appears under the radar because the big magazines won't cover it; to me it's underground again.It has become its own thing at this point.
I think it's a good thing. The scene will continue to grow without the support of major magazines and a lot of the journalists look at the late '90s, where trance became a concrete thing which disappeared and they are the ones who latched on this idea that it wasn't a serious form of music anymore because it wasn't trying to be cool. They look past it, but they are the ones who are missing out and can't understand that this music is new, fresh and exciting. They are stuck in the past.Does the BPM define the genre?
It doesn't define Pure Trance at all. Orkidea did a little bit of a history of the music and when you look back, in the '70s where it began it wasn't about BPM at all. The fans tend to fall into little groups such as "Team 140" and it's a positive thing. Trance fans often attack other genres because they have been at the mercy of the music fashion police for such a long time and they feel like giving it back. I don't blame them at all; I do feel sorry for artists like W&W because they get shit on all the time, because they picked their path to be successful.Let's talk about artists who bring in elements from other styles of music into trance. Styles like breakbeat, dubstep and psychedelic trance. What is your stance on that?
Psytrance is back! I really started to notice with labels like Perfecto Records. This is why we do Pure Trance. Because it's different; I don't feel it's better or superior to anything else but simply an alternative to everything else. It's all about the feeling you get when you listen to it.How do you stay optimistic when you hear about this entire EDM explosion where everything is becoming more commercialized?
It's great because it is spreading the word about it and it's getting people into electronic music. People get into this music because of any DJ–be it Tiësto, Hardwell, myself and it can only be a good thing. There is far too much negativity from the people in the scene who are looking for problems; I mean why shouldn't Tiësto be able to play music that he loves to be a successful DJ? So what if he doesn't play trance anymore?That's true, people always talk about how they want the old W&W but there are other artists are available for them to discover.
I like what those guys do. They pack clubs all over the world. I spent some time with them in Australia during Stereosonic and talked about how they produce their music despite their tracks being only about five minutes long and only have a few elements in them, days and days are spent on creating those tracks for maximum impact.What does Solarstone mean?
I was contacted by a label and they told me they were doing the art work for one of my releases and we had 20 minutes to think of a name. I had a book laying around about ancient art and mythology that we threw in the air a few times and it fell on the page where there was some Egyptian hieroglyphic engraving on it that was called the "Solarstone."Ani is an electronic music advocate and loves soda water. Follow him on Twitter: @anihajderaj.