From Lullaby to Anthem: Solarstone’s Over the Mountains
Inspired by fatherhood and transition, the new single from innermost delivers a warm, expressive journey with classic Solarstone depth.
From its earliest moments, ‘innermost’, Solarstone’s 2025 artist album, promised something from Richard Mowatt rooted in reflection, candour, and revelation. A longplayer emotionally centred around life aspects such as becoming a husband, and a father again, while watching his firstborn come of age, was always going to cut close.
Following the atmospherically instrumental overtures of ‘shivelight’ and ‘sonata’, last month its singles path led to vocal ground. In keeping with the Clara Yates-penned and -sung ‘your sacrifice’, ‘over the mountains’ is another piece of music with deep familial connections to the artist. So much so, that when it came to putting the vocals to it, Rich instinctively picked up that mantle himself.
Having previously lent song to several of his own works (‘Late Summer Fields’, ‘Lovers’ & ‘Shards’ among them), Solarstone’s not necessarily a stranger to doing so. ‘over the mountains’, however, has a unique type of emotional genesis, which Rich himself goes on to explain:
“Back in the day, I used to whisper ‘down the valley / up the hill / over the mountains’ to my son, Oscar, as something of a lullaby when I put him to bed. He left home recently and that hit me hard. So, I turned that little phrase into a full track, one that has that classic happy-sad Solarstone feel: warm, expressive, infused with a quiet assurance.”
