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Solstice digital downloads
progrock.co.uk | Progressive Rock | Solstice | Solstice digital downloads
 Silent DanceBy the time the debut album was recorded, Solstice were already seasoned veterans of countless gigs throughout Britain. It is striking, then, that Silent Dance is so emphatically a studio album. From the staccato opening of 'Peace' to the jazz-tinged coda of 'Find Yourself', the album has a glacial quality. The rough, folky edges were replaced by a sleek ambience, sometimes intimate ('Earthsong'), elsewhere thrillingly expansive ('Sunrise'). Mark Eltons violin was reigned in as atmospheric keyboards gained prominence, generally leaving centre stage to Sandy Leighs vocals and Andy Glasss guitar. |
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 New LifeSome seven years after the band split (not counting an all-hands-on-deck one-off reunion in 1986), Solstice had resurfaced with New Life. With Andy Glass at the controls, the production was much closer to the live sound than on Silent Dance, with a fuller dynamic doing justice to bassist Craig Sunderland, adding depth and power to the stage favourites that hadnt made it onto the debut. The lavish swathes of keyboards are still present, but Marc Eltons violin is more prominent, blending with Andys guitar to frame Heidi Kemps commanding vocals. |
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 CirclesNew Life, in finally offering studio versions of hitherto unreleased stage favourites that didnt make it onto the debut, in some ways marked the close of a chapter. With 1997s Circles, the band moved forward with a set of new material. Framed by two meditative instrumentals, Salú and Coming Home, Circles is perhaps the most impassioned Solstice album, the title track being a case in point. A bustling musical energy crackles beneath lyrics concerning individual and communal spirituality, but this is no utopian fantasy, being firmly grounded by samples of radio reports of the violent confrontations of Stonehenge 1985. The theme continues throughout the album, with the necessity for change rooted in the political and ecological chaos of the end of the twentieth century. |
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 The Cropredy SetThirteen years after the brace of sell-out farewell concerts at Londons legendary Marquee club, it was finally time to release a live album. And, given the subsequent demolition of the old Marquee, what better location for such a recording than a festival stage? The venue was Cropredy, Fairport Conventions annual celebration of the finest in folk, rock and the hybrid beasts in between. The sun shone on a huge crowd as Solstice, now augmented by Jenny Newman on violin, Robin Phillips on bass and Steve McDaniel on keyboards, took the stage for a set that began with a sequence of old favourites before concentrating on newer material. Most of these were from the then-recent Circles album, but there was also space for a band version of Awakening from Clive Bunkers solo album, along with the new instrumental, Ducks On The Pond. |
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progrock.co.uk | Progressive Rock | Solstice | Solstice digital downloads