English outfit Solstice have made a name for themselves as an act playing melodic progressive rock with strong leanings towards neo progressive in sound, classic 70's symphonic rock in expression - tinged with elements from folk music. Similarities to Camel, Yes and Mostly Autumn have been drawn when describing the band. Formed in 1980, English band Solstice is first and foremost the band project of Andy Glass (guitar), the only musician participating on all the band's productions and the main composer for the band in it's various guises.
Apart from recording the demo cassette "The Peace Tape" Glass and his companions didn't produce any recordings in their first years of existence; concentrating on playing live in these early years. Come 1983 and the band had already seen vocalists Sue Robinson and Shelly Patt come and go, and when they hit the studio it was with a line-up consisting of Glass, Marc Elton (violin, keyboards), Mark Hawkins (bass), Martin Wright (drums) and Sandy Leigh (vocals). The result of the studio time was issued as "Silent Dance" in 1984. The band started breaking apart shortly after this release though, as Leigh and Hawkins left. Barbara Deason (vocals) and Ken Bowley (bass) replaced them, but by 1985 the band effectively broke up, with a one-off comeback for a charity event in 1986 the initial swansong for this outfit.
Six years later a real comeback took place. Glass and Elton were the sole remaining members from the formative years, this time joined by Heidi Kemp (vocals), Craig Sutherland (bass) and Pete Hemsley (drums). 1993 saw this line-up issue a CD aptly named "New Life". More line-up changes followed this release, and the next time the band hit the recording studio Kemp and Hemsley were gone, replaced by Emma Brown (vocals) and Clive Bunker (drums, formerly of Jethro Tull, Pentangle, Gordon Giltrap). The end result this time around was a production named "Circles", issued in 1997. Shortly after this release more line-up changes were afoot however. Sutherland left, and Elton had to give up playing live due to a hearing ailment. New musicians in were Jenny Newman (violin), Steve McDaniels (keyboards) and Rob Phillips (bass).
In 1998 this version of the band hit the Cropredy Festival, and equipment was set up to capture this live show, planned to be released as a live album shortly after. It turned out that the sound quality of these recordings weren't the best though, so the band opted to record a live in the studio version of the concert instead, eventually released as "The Cropredy Set" in 2002. The pause between recordings and release was at least partially the result of the band yet again entering hiatus; and it wasn't until 2007 that Solstice yet again emerged - this time around with only one minor line-up change; former drummer Pete Hemsley taking the place of Clive Bunker. 2007 saw the entire back catalog of Solstice - 4 productions in total - reissued in definitive editions with bonus material added; and a live DVD attached to the 2002 album "The Cropredy Set" arguably the most interesting of those. At the same time Solstice started touring again, and plans for a fifth album are in the making as well. From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=937
