Manchester’s popular production duo, Solardo are en route to the cliffside of Omnia Dayclub, Uluwatu for a tech house trip on February 10. After a wild 2018, with standout sets at Circoloco, Manchester and at Blue Marlin Ibiza UAE, EDC, Glastonbury, Lovebox, and their Hï Ibiza residency alongside Eric Prydz, Solardo are just getting started! Their latest release “Accelerator” in collaboration with CamelPhat has had support across Radio 1 with Annie Mac, Pete Tong and Danny Howard to name a few. Whether their touring the world with Jamie Jones, spinning with Green Velvet and Jackmaster in underground clubs and festivals, the support Solardo has is as solid as the bass weight their tracks possess. We caught up with the UK duo, Mark Richards and James Eliot, to talk about Solardo, touring and more!
You’ve had a crazy past couple of years touring the world! What are some of the most memorable moments of your career so far?
Parklife festival last year was insane. We played early on the Circoloco stage as we were playing somewhere else that night and when we got there, about 20 minutes before the set, there was only a few hundred people at the stage. We then went to our trailer and had a couple of drinks before we went on thinking about what to play as the crowd was so small. We then walked up to the stage at stage time and, because of the size of the stage, we couldn’t see the arena. We then walked out on stage to around 20,000 people. We couldn’t believe it. It was very surreal. I don’t even know how that many people could have appeared in just 20 minutes. But it was mint.
How does it feel becoming more and more well known in the music world? How did it all begin?
Its feels really, really f**%ing great, thanks! Life is a dream and we have to pinch ourselves from time to time. However, we are working harder than ever and as things get bigger for us then it adds new pressures and challenges as the responsibilities become a lot more demanding whilst sticking to our guns. It sounds very clichéd but the pressure inspires us to not slow down, so bring it on!
We started by playing and developing our sound at all night basement parties in Manchester with our mates. The ethos of Solardo was and will always be no matter who you are or what you are up to in life then come along, get involved and lets all have a rave.
In terms of production, what are some of your inspirations and how do you incorporate these inspirations into your own productions?
We’re always pushing ideas, developing our sound and learning. With tech-house it’s easy enough to bang together a sample with a 32 bar beat and a big drop but that ultimately just becomes cheesier and stale as more people jump on that bandwagon. We like to try and make tracks that have a more techno lean to them that are right for that moment at 4am. There’s also others where we spend time trying to incorporate those parts of house music where soul, depth and moving people into our work.
As we’ve got more known, commercial opportunities have been presented to us which can be fun to look at as you’ll be taking a body of work that has been made to appeal to a certain audience and delivering our own take on it for what we are about. Sometimes it works, other times it’s straight into the bin. That’s all part of the process and learning curve though.
Do you have any upcoming releases that you’re excited to show the world?
We’ve started working with a wider group of topliners and session musicians and other artists recently to bring different ideas to the table. With our schedule being very demanding we need to make every opportunity count in the studio. For us at the moment it’s working with various musicians from outside our normal 9 – 5 scene.
What are some parties/collaborations/landmarks you are looking forward to experience in 2019?
We’ve got big Ibiza news coming real soon. That’s something we have been sworn to secrecy for the moment so we’d be killed if we told you and we’re not a fan of getting killed 🙂
Parklife at our hometown in Manchester is always a highlight and we’re in the middle of working on the next run of HIGHER parties (our event series) which lets us program wider house & techno lineups based on our spectrum of taste.
How do you feel about the underground music scene in Asia?
The world we live in is getting smaller thanks to social media so you see and hear of all types of artists across the spectrum from the UK & Europe going over to Asia and having a great time touring. From where we sit it looked like there was a select number of clubs you’d see put house & techno acts on, with the rest of the market share going to EDM, but as times have changed and more house & techno events are in Asia then it only gets better for us and our peers as there are more people into the music and coming to hear you rather than just a hype thing.
What’s your ideal party location? Outdoor? Indoor? Intimate or fully packed? Full of decorations? If you were in charge how would it go down?
Depends on the type of event. For us the main thing is that everyone there is having a great time so it doesn’t matter if it’s a blacked out room with a single strobe or the production is in another world with confetti, stage shows, etc. Just has to be the right set up so everyone in the building can get involved and rave.
Well, I reckon everyone will be ready to rave at Omnia next Sunday. What kind of vibe can we expect there?
The full-on no holds barred Solardo experience.
Here’s is the Solardo experience at Omnia on Sunday, Feb 10, 2019.
What tracks are you starting and ending your sets with right now? What’s the reason why?
We usually start our sets with something quite rolling and always brand new, I guess like our upcoming ‘Tango Wango’ track. (shameless plug yes)Towards the end of the sets we start playing our tracks as they get the best reactions. We then might finish on a classic.
Tango Wango was released last Friday. Listen here.
