Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams: Recordings for The Dark Outside, by Bipolar Explorer (c/p. 2021 Slugg Records)

Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams: Recordings for The Dark Outside

by Bipolar Explorer (c/p. 2021 Slugg Records)

supported by

Jim Jarmo Dreamy, meditative, soundscapey wonderfulness. :)

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Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

NOTE: In addition to a limited-edition run of the album on CD, we're excited to announce that a limited-edition run of the album will also be available, for the first time, on cassette! The Dark Outside, themselves, are partnering with us and the limited-edition cassette will be available through their page. More details soon!

Purchasable with gift card

$8 USD or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Comes in gorgeous 4-panel eco-wallet, art design by longtime band collaborator Audun Grimstad, liner notes written by the group, full color disc.

Includes unlimited streaming of Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams: Recordings for The Dark Outside via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 3 days

edition of 300

$11 USD or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
"Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams: Recordings for The Dark Outside" CD (2021) + black on black BPX t-shirt.

Tshirt is American Apparel cotton, made in USA, slim fit.

Includes unlimited streaming of Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams: Recordings for The Dark Outside via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 4 days

$18 USD or more
Full Digital Discography

18

releases

Get all 18 Bipolar Explorer releases available on Bandcamp and save 40%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of The Distant Horizon, In The Hours Left Until Dawn, 10th Anniversary "Of Love and Loss" Live Solo Set, Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams: Recordings for The Dark Outside, Deux Anges, eleven:eleven, The Dark Outside, The Light Within, Til Morning Is Nigh: A Dream of Christmas, and 10 more. , and , .

Purchasable with gift card

$62.40 USD or more (40% OFF)

1.	The Dark Outside, The Light Within (extended version) 06:56		buy track
2.	eleven:eleven (extended version) 12:35	lyrics	buy track
Within this time Within this time within And all nothing knowing all All, within this time Within this time within Moment to moment To memory Now Within this time Within this time within This time within: Inside of dream’s reveal Like a siren choir Of cherubim Their call distant, ethereal, indecipherable And altogether known, somehow Within this time Within this time within And always was always Within this time Within this time within
3.	In Between Hours 06:38	lyrics	buy track
Can't you see? Everything is out of order. Everything is out of order. Everything is out of order. Can you hear me? Everything is out of order. Can you feel me? Everything is out of order. Can you trust me? Everything is out of order. Everything is out of order. Everything is out of order. Can't you see? Can you feel me? Can you trust me? Everything is out of order. Everything is out of order. Can't you see?
4.	The Storm Passes 08:29		buy track
5.	Corridor 11:57	lyrics	buy track
I used to be so scared as a child, of the corridor that was leading to my bedroom. I would just run in the dark to get back to my bed as soon as possible. Fearing monsters or even worse… could get me… in that corridor. In the dark I worried there wasn’t a floor. That I would just drop into nothingness. I couldn’t see in the blackness to find my way and I would blindly reach for the walls to touch, to feel for the wooden frame of a door, grasp with fingers outstretched for the sensation of the wallpaper, its pattern raised like braille to help guide me. The darkness haunted me with its shapes and textures - that texture that darkness has - and I could feel the presence there of something, of someone. Others. I wasn’t supposed to be there. The darkness was theirs. And though I couldn’t see them, could only feel them behind me, I knew I didn’t belong. Hardly able to breath, careful not to make a sound, I would creep along. And when at last a sliver of light appeared so I could see the floor beyond me, I would run. I would run and run and run.
6.	Expected Viking, Becoming Cyclonic 09:07		buy track
7.	Prayers Within a Cathedral of Trees 14:42		buy track

about

REVIEWS:
"Wondrous! A great album! -Irene Trudel, WFMU

"Sublime. Maybe their finest. Brilliant. Brilliant." -Max Reinhardt, BBC Radio 3/Soho Radio (London)

"A gorgeous swirl of spellbinding psychedelic ambience. Mesmerizing voices and atmospheric guitars. A glorious head trip of post-rock psychedelia, hallucinatory English/French poetry, dreamy ambience and deeply immersive noisy soundscapes." -Fog Songs (UK)

"Avante and experimental, with lots of layers. Very intriguing and quite haunting" - The Sound Projector (London)

Also: The track "Expected Viking, Becoming Cyclonic" was the opening selection of the September 22 edition of BBC 6 presenter Tom Robinson for his Fresh on the Net "Eclectic Picks" podcast.

A SPECIAL NOTE:
On December 17, 2021, legendary BBC 3 and Soho Radio DJ Max Reinhardt closed the first set of his show with these words and the closing track of this album:

“…Well, there’s only one way to go - to people I’ve never met in my life but they are good friends. We hear from them quite a lot: Bipolar Explorer.

Bipolar Explorer are a fascinating band, who I have described as “liminal”. They’re always becoming. And they’re always stepping out of having become, too. This is off a new album that just came out at the very beginning of this month - Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams: Recordings for The Dark Outside. It’s on Slugg Records and Bandcamp, by the way. And they are Summer Serafin - who’s still there - vocals, spoken word. Michael Serafin-Wells who plays a great many instruments and tape loops and things and Sylvia Solanas who’s also spoken word.

So, the origins of this work is a 24-hour broadcast from Galloway Forest. The Dark Outside has been held annually since 2012. Furthering its mystique, the broadcast can only be heard within the narrow range of the transmitter rented for the event. So, actually this expands that listenership because the album comprises seven pieces they recorded for this experimental radio broadcast in the UK. It’s called The Dark Outside and it’s probably well worth finding when it’s there. But when it’s not there, you can always listen to this album from Bipolar Explorer. This track is called “Prayers With a Cathedral of Trees”.

(plays track, live tweets: “Now playing - the sublime Bipolar Explorer”…)

“You had it all there, really, didn’t you? You had minimalism. You had Musique Concrète. You had real sound. You had just an amazing feeling of release. And somehow being out there under the stars and the wind. That was “Prayers Within a Cathedral of Trees” - Bipolar Explorer. And maybe that’s one of their finest tracks ever. It is for me. That’s off their new album, Forests, Voices, Coastlines, Dreams: Recordings for The Dark Outside, originally made for an experimental radio broadcast event - very mysterious, you’ll have to find out when it’s on, it happens in this country, every… I think once a year - The Dark Outside. For more information, Google “The Dark Outside” and see what you get. But brilliant, brilliant band - Bipolar Explorer.”

Max Reinhardt
Soho Radio (London)
December 17, 2021

ABOUT THIS ALBUM:
This album comprises the seven pieces we recorded for the UK’s storied experimental radio broadcast event The Dark Outside.

Soliciting new unheard, unreleased work and then assembling a 24 hour broadcast from Galloway Forest (and one year in Epping) The Dark Outside has been held annually since 2012. Furthering its mystique, the broadcast can only be heard within the narrow range of the transmitter rented for the event.

During the pandemic, Dark Outside's curators reinvented its scope by taking it online and, over those 18 months of lockdown, holding it thrice more. I think what intrigued us most about the project - and during the lockdown versions when it was broadcast online we would wake in New York and France and, like children on Christmas Eve, stay up all night into the following day to hear each delightful hour of it - was the invitation to compose Experimental music. Drones over field recordings. Synth improvisations anchored by spoken word. Tape loops with ambient guitar underscoring. Admittedly, we were already including works like these on our albums but each new Dark Outside gave us an “excuse” to try another track in this vein.

The Dark Outside returned to its in-person format in September for its sole 2021 broadcast and as our hope rises that some sense of normality will return to our lives, we dream of attending in 2022 for the festival’s 10th anniversary, flying to England and renting a room to be nearby, listening on a transistor radio, strolling about the grounds.

We expect to release a “proper” album, our 11th, next year, as well. Meantime, we hope you enjoy this diversion (we’ve taken to saying, only half-kidding, that this release is for everyone who always likes the weirdest stuff on our albums, that, here it is - just the weird stuff) as much as we enjoyed making it for you.

With thanks, love and faith,

Michael Serafin-Wells
New York City

credits

released December 1, 2021

Summer Serafin - vocals, spoken word.
Michael Serafin-Wells - guitars, bass, synth, organ, piano, percussion, chimes, tape loops, vocals, spoken word.
Sylvia Solanas - spoken word.

Composed by Michael Serafin-Wells, c/p 2019-21 Thirteen November Music (ASCAP).
Spoken word narrative poems by Michael Serafin-Wells.
Translations into the French by Sylvia Solanas.

Recorded and mixed live, noisily and in a hurry at The Shrine, NYC.
Additional remote recordings - France.
Field recordings on location - New York, California, France, Northern Atlantic Coast.

Produced and mixed by Bipolar Explorer.
Mastered by Scott Craggs, Old Colony - Boston.
Cover: “Dovedale by Moonlight” - Joseph Wright of Derby (public domain).
Graphics: Sylvia Solanas
CD Art Design/Direction: Audun Grimstad

Special thanks to Stuart MacLean (aka: Frenchbloke) - curator and founder of The Dark Outside.

c/p 2021 Bipolar Explorer, Slugg Records and Thirteen November Music (ASCAP).

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about

Bipolar Explorer New York, New York

"Holy sonic icons. There is hauntology. Hauntology right in the center of their work."-Max Reinhardt (BBC 3/Soho Radio)

"Magical & majestic." -Indiemusic (France).

"Great, beautiful drifty-pop filled with sadness & wonder" -Irene Trudel (WFMU)

"Mysterious. Otherworldly.” - Carson Street, KFJC

NYC-based experimental dreampop trio of Summer Serafin, Michael Serafin-Wells & Sylvia Solanas. ... more

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