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. Find it through all good sales and streaming platforms here. [blackhole.lnk.to/SlowmotionVII]
Tracklist:
01. Solarstone & Orkidea – Slowmotion VII (Extended Mix)
02. Solarstone & Orkidea – Slowmotion VII (Original Mix)
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