Bipolar Explorer - Memories of the Sky

 

Released: December 1

In this follow-up to last year’s In The Hours Left Until Dawn, Bipolar Explorer brings us a sprawling album filled with the kinds of shoegaze-y musings you might expect. But this one definitively veers in two distinct directions over and over. On the one hand, we get these very spiritual sounding odes to life like “Hold My Soul” which features repeated riffs that play out like a mantra of their own as Michael’s airy vocals reverberate around the space. On the other hand, we get darker little dirges that feature Sylvia’s distinctively intimate speaking voice, reading poems and prose that reflect deep emotional burdens and longings. There’s this interplay between the two styles throughout the album that sets up a certain tension which encompasses the entire runtime. 

To be clear, it’s not just a back and forth of different voices. In fact, much of the album features no vocals at all, which makes their intermittent appearance have that much more weight. In these cases, we are only given the abstracted sounds provided by guitars, basses, synths, and sample to continue on this mysterious and wonderful journey. “Winter Light,” is but a short little interlude in the scheme of the album that is set up early on by a piece of short spoken prose that appears only once more. But the sounds of guitars, basses, and synths craft a drifting and otherworldly scene for the listener, one that feels much like staring into a reflecting pool that only provides part of the image. “The Lost Day” eschews that prose and the sung vocals in favor of a found recording of Summer speaking, fading in and out of focus to allow the guitar and light percussion to overlap the recording as if she was moving behind it all, only being heard in the gaps between. 

The unexpected directions in which Bipolar Explorer goes throughout the album creates something that is more than just explorations of sound. As I said, there is a very spiritual element at play here, something that taps into both the beauty and harsh reality of life. There is plenty beauty to be had, if one can embrace the harshness for the contrast it brings.