Solardo’s blend of big bass and house might be riding the crest of a wave, but for one half of the duo, it’s been a long and sometimes difficult journey. Ahead of dissecting his latest CR2 Records release, we talk tech with Mark Foster, discover how Aphex Twin brought dubstep to the world, and learn why setting trends rather than following them is key. And then he reveals something incredibly spooky…

Mark Foster is certainly in a reflective mood, but with over two decades of music production in a wide variety of styles - perhaps too wide as we eventually discover - he’s got a lot to reflect on. After discovering music production by way of cheap looping software, he fell in step with Reason, became something of a dubstep and grime pioneer in the 2000s before a brush with celebrity and taking his eye off the ball left him with ‘one more shot’ at making it in music production. In Solardo and new music partner James Barlow just that shot presented itself… and he’s taken it with gusto.

The duo have certainly made waves with their cutting-edge blend of bass house that initially saw them borrow from the very roots of Manchester music - with acid house motifs and beats - to produce an updated Manchester house sound that’s won them fans from many genres, and collaborations/remixes with everyone from Calvin Harris to Duke Dumont and Gorgon City.

With sold-out shows across the globe, appearances lined up across Europe and releases with Harris’s Love Regenerator outfit lined up for later this year, Solardo are at the top of their game. A new sample collection with CR2 Records is out as we speak and it’s time for Mark to dissect one of the tracks he lays bare for that collection in this special Producer Masterclass. Before we get to that, though, there’s a lot of water under the Foster bridge to discuss. Lots of highs and lows and much of it intrinsically linked to music software - different versions, different titles, cracked and not cracked. Foster now believes in the power of attraction and positivity - and with a story that will blow your mind (just you wait). With everything Solardo now coming up smelling of success, let’s look back at his history, it’s easy to see why…

Student to dubstepper

“I started Djing when I was 18, putting on a drum & bass night at Stockport University when I was 18,” Mark begins. “My room-mate was into drum & bass too and we DJ-d as MI6 and decided to start making tunes. We used something like [PC loop-based software] Music 200, just putting blocks together on screen. Obviously the sound quality was horrendous but we got some decent tunes out of it.

“We were sampling records and sent out tracks to everyone and signed a couple to Kenny Ken, the jungle DJ. It was around 1999 so I can’t remember too many of the details! We had a couple of releases on small labels but then Reason came out and we heard it had everything from a studio in one box, so we sacked off going to lessons and just got into that. We had a couple of releases then but it wasn’t really getting too far.”

Mark eventually moved to Sheffield and met the DJ, Oris Jay, one of the pioneers of the then unnamed genre that would become dubstep. Indeed it was Jay who introduced Foster to this burgeoning form of music. “He said ‘I‘ve started making this kind of dark garage, similar to drum & bass but slow in tempo, you should try it’,” Mark recalls.