Solar: Astrodome
Solar’s debut album ‘Astrodome’. The album isn’t really a debut as if it had been released it would have arrived hard on the heels of the Six EPs. Recorded in Blue Mountain’s basement studio in 1999 and early 2000 the album saw the band continue to expand their sonic universe. James Bastard, the in-house engineer, had just returned from working with Salif Keita in Mali and introduced the band to African guitar players and rhythms. There’s a quest to go back to the very beginning of the blues, African blues, and, using sampling technology, bring those textures forward into the 21st century. Solar build on their early work of loops and found-sounds with more ‘live’ tracks and real percussion.