Solardo Essentials

Editors’ Notes Manchester’s house-music history stretches back to the cavernous Haçienda nightclub in the ’80s. In the 21st century, native sons Mark Richards and James Eliot carry the torch in the duo Solardo, complete with collaborations with bona fide icons like Marshall Jefferson and Armand Van Helden. The duo’s productions for labels like Hot Creations and Toolroom are steeped in tradition, filled with thundering basslines, shuffling beats, cut-up diva vocals and rave stabs falling like bolts from the blue. They’re the rare act that understands heads-down hypnosis (the rolling groove of “Be Somebody”) as well hands-in-the-air anthems (the cascading euphoria of “Xtc”).