Bipolar Explorer is an American dreampop band from New York City. Formed in its present state and genre by band co-founders Summer Serafin (vocals, spoken word) and Michael Serafin-Wells (guitars, bass guitar, percussion, vocals, spoken word), the group has released ten albums and seven singles on Slugg Records beginning with 2012's double-album "Of Love and Loss". The band became a trio with the addition of French spoken word artist Sylvia Solanas in 2018.
Formation and Of Love and Loss
After an initial indie rock release – Go Negative (2005, Slugg Records) featuring former Uncle bandmates Michael Serafin-Wells (songwriter, guitars, bass guitar, vocals) and Yves Gerard (drums, backing vocals) – still very much in the style of their previous group, Bipolar Explorer changed direction and personnel re-configuring under the influence of co-founder and vocalist Summer Serafin.
Debuting the new sound in live performance at New York's Cooper Square Hotel, PopMatters described the band as "eclectic, powerful and steadfast" and the group began work on an EP recording for Slugg Records in Brooklyn.
Before it could be completed, on March 18, 2011, Ms. Serafin passed away after a tragic accident. She was just 31.
Many months later, armed with newly written songs post-tragedy, Serafin-Wells and the band returned to those recordings and in October 2012 released a double-album of, for and about Ms. Serafin. Entitled Of Love and Loss, Ground Control Magazine’s Daryl Darko Barnett pronounced it "the most significantly stirring and addictive musical accomplishment we’ve come across in some time", naming it to their Critics Poll of Best Albums of the Year.
Angels and BPXmas
At the end of 2014, the band released two albums in quick succession, a holiday one BPXmas on December 3, 2014, and Of Love and Loss’s follow-up, Angels on New Year's Day 2015.
Both critically acclaimed, NPR’s "On Being" noted the band's reworking holiday classics in their signature dream pop style and both albums began rotation on WFMU, notably finding favor with the station's legendary deejay Irene Trudel who called their sound "great, beautiful drifty-pop".
Ground Control’s Daryl Darko Barnett wrote a feature about the former "Bipolar Explorer Work a Double-Shift Through the Holidays" and ended 2015 by naming Angels to his number one spot in the magazine's Best Albums of the Year round up, calling it "electrifying -what music fueled by raw love and emotions sounds like".
Electric Hymnal
In June 2016, the band released their fifth album, a collection of devotional songs and spoken word, both sacred and secular, described as "a sonic prayer" for their fallen bandmate, Ms. Serafin. Their first foray into the use of spoken word as a component of their sound, Serafin-Wells would return to its use, composing narrative poetry for a female voice and underscoring it with ambient, post-rock guitars in subsequent releases. Again, Ground Control hailed the work "...Get ready to be swept up and away by a prayerful reverie of melodies. Listening, I began to feel like I was flying. Don't forget that Bipolar Explorer is a post-rock band. Low growling vocals, gnarly grinding tempos, rhythmic looping strands that escape and rise above the weight of this world, where angels and the living mingle..."
Featuring album art by American artist Michael Creese, Electric Hymnal was released as a limited-edition CD only (no digital) and given away by the band to fans upon request as "a gift of faith".
Dream Together
On New Year's Day 2017, the band released their sixth album, Dream Together. WFMU’s Liz Berg featuring tracks on her show called it "just a great record". Again, WFMU’s Irene Trudel, praising it as "beautiful, full of sadness and wonder". The album made its way onto the charts of California's free-form KDVS, as well, starting as the station's No. 4 New Add the first week of January and rising to No. 18 overall in the weeks after.
Reaching Europe, the album was praised by France's Indiemusic as "Magical and majestic – an ultimate tour-de-force".