Everyone’s talking about a lunar event that's happening tonight, little sweetheart. It’s the Blue Supermoon, the biggest and brightest moon of the year.
We can’t go on the roof here, anymore, little sweetheart but I’m going to try and walk up into the park where there’s less artificial light and see if I can watch the moonrise tonight.
It always, needless to say, makes me think of you and this song of ours about that very phenomenon - the perigee-syzygy.
With all my love…
Little sweetheart, I wanted to tell you that yesterday the great BBC 3 and Soho Radio broadcaster, Max Reinhardt had us on his show. We spoke for an hour, much about you, of course and he had some very kind and thoughtful words about both the new album and our entire body of work together.
He called us “holy sonic icons”, little sweetheart, and I think that’s going be hard to top, don’t you?!
One of the things he said that really struck me was that the music has always seemed to him like sacred music and that that had so very much to do with you.
That is so very much what I’ve often hoped others would take from this, little sweetheart, because writing, composing, playing, recording, our music has always been to me a form of prayer - for and to you. A love letter of faith.
Listen, little sweetheart - you’re on the radio! With all my love…
I don’t want to go too heavily within these pages in talking about the band - even though, as I’ve told others so many times the entire project is of, for and about you. But exactly because it is so very much about you, I just want to say that In The Hours Left Until Dawn has somehow really seemed to have struck a chord with people and, especially, remarkably, in a spiritual sense.
A lot of reviews and broadcasters have focused on that. Montreal’s Jefffey Davison (CKUT) among them who said that all of our work has had a spiritual component but perhaps never more so than this album. Another, Portland’s Uncertain Reverie, has described it as “Beautiful, shimmering, hypnotic, dreamlike; always a sense of passage through unnameable dimensions; the haunt is palpable but as an enveloping wonder and at times I felt I was listening to stained glass…" .
An interview I did with Fringes of Sound editor Lars Haur a few weeks ago was broadcast on April 25 and I got to talk a lot about not only how much the project is devoted to you, little sweetheart, but how you yourself are the very soul of it. I love that people understand that. I think you may remember that I told you our friend Neal Huff did a podcast with me on the anniversary of the release of Of Love and Loss and one of the things that he remarked on was how extraordinary he thought it was that this project continued to bring you to others, for people to be touched, as so many of us have been so deeply, by your beautiful spirit.
That’s entirely why this project goes on, little sweetheart.
I had stepped away from this blog briefly last year and honestly I am rather daunted still by trying to complete the first book of memoirs for you. But I will continue to return here, just to tell you little things about daily life, my memories of us together, my enduring love and admiration for you, and my faith that we will one day be together again in The Forever.
With all my love…
Today is April 7th, little sweetheart.
It’s your late big brother Jesse’s 52nd birthday. I know you two are together now to enjoy it and to make your celestial presence known to all of we who love and mourn you - that you’re both helping and comforting and guiding us to you.
Today is also, quite purposefully, release day for In The Hours Left Until Dawn. We picked Jesse’s birthday especially for it - this journey both through the literal night and through the night of our lives toward the dawn of being again with our beloveds passed into The Forever.
I’m sure I’ll be back to tell you of how the release unfolds and how it may resonant with others because your spirit so brightly touches everyone who lets it into their heart. Meantime, I’ll just say that I love you so very much, my little sweetheart. Forever!
Little sweetheart, as release day for the new album approaches, we’re hearing more and more wonderful things about how this music - of, for and about you - touches others. There was quite a lovely mention today in the UK’s wonderful A Closer Listen. The album heads their Spring Preview list of new releases and, in part, had this to say:
“Bipolar Explorer’s ‘In The Hours Left Until Dawn’ is a sprawling suite of instrumentals, sung and spoken word. Loss permeates the music, gracing it with a tragic mystery.”
It’s all for you, little sweetheart!
Little sweetheart, non-commercial, community and public radio have all been particular advocates of our music over the last decade from London’s Resonance to California’s KFJC to The Netherlands Radio Hoogeveen to France’s CAMP. They’re all quite different stations in their own right but all have in common that they are listener-supported and do not take corporate or even governmental funding. Individual listener contributions, often quite modest ones, are what keep them on the air.
One of our greatest champions, little sweetheart, has been WFMU, who are currently in the midst of their annual fundraising “Marathon”. Most public radio stations give away prizes or “premiums” as gifts during the fundraising and, fervent listener-supporters ourselves, we’ve been honored this year to be included in all that.
Two shows on WFMU have made our upcoming 11th album, In The Hours Left Until Dawn, a pledge prize (one of them a Grand Prize) as part of their efforts. It’s honor to help support WFMU and very kind of them, too, in letting more people know about our work - which is of, for and about YOU!
Listen, little sweetheart, you’re on the radio!!
Little sweetheart, we’ve been getting some really nice airplay over the last couple of years in the UK, especially via a London station that our friend Kris turned you and I on to - Resonance-FM. Remember listening to it in the kitchen at their flat in North London?
Kris always thought our stuff would be good on some of their programming and a few years ago we reached out to them, around the time of Dream Together, I think. Four or five shows at the station have now become friends of ours, little sweetheart. Two shows with the word “sonic” in their titles - Sonic Imperfections (mostly experimental music) and Sonic Tapestries (mostly ambient music) are among them. Also, The Sound Projector - which is a show curated by the editor of the music zine of the same name and the storied experimental music group, Soviet France, who have a weekly show on Saturday night called “A Duck in a Tree”.
All have previewed and/or premiered tracks from the upcoming album this month, little sweetheart, and another favorite, Fog Cast, devoted half the program to their own preview tonight.
Listen, little sweetheart - you’re on the radio!
Little sweetheart, when Of Love and Loss first came out, we got a really nice review from Toronto’s Ground Control Magazine. The writer, Daryl Darko Barnett, later interviewed me and I found out he actually lived in NorCal. Over the next few years we got to be friends and he was often telling me about a great college station in Los Altos Hills - KFJC. He really thought they’d like our stuff and it was his - and I’d later discover - lots of NorCal folks favorite station.
I routinely sent them new releases but never heard anything until one day when Daryl called me. He was driving around and he had the station on but he was in the mountains and it kept coming in and out but he heard them back announce us. He didn’t hear the song but he heard our name, little sweetheart. So, I looked up who was on air just then and it was Carson Street, kind of KFJC’s main deejay.
I got in touch and he told me the station had loved Til Morning Is Nigh and that it had been in their Heavily Played Albums list. Carson, of course, has gone on to be a great friend and advocate of ours. It was he, little sweetheart, who did the three hour special about us in 2020 just before we released Deux Anges.
Today, Carson and the station added In The Hours Left Until Dawn to the current library. The album doesn’t come out until April 7 but they have an advance copy and it should be on several shows before the week is even out.
Listen, little sweetheart - you’re on the radio!
Little sweetheart, our CAMP show is actually every four weeks, so even though we say it’s a monthly show, sometimes, like this month, there’s actually two of them! The second January show was aired yesterday and is now up the MixCloud archive, here. I love that always the very first and very last thing we hear each month is your voice! With all my love forever.
Little sweetheart, like I was saying, the new album doesn’t release until April 7, but we’ve already gotten some lovely airplay and very kind words from WFMU’s legendary Irene Trudel to KFJC’s great Carson Street, from NSPR’s wonderful ambient music show Tapeta Lucida, to Italy’s White Light/White Heat music zine, who named it to their “Picks of the Week”. We’re very honored and grateful and, little sweetheart, it is, as ever, all for you. With all my love…
Little sweetheart, our 11th album is complete! I’d been tinkering with the mixes even into January but finally sent them off for mastering and then with the finished artwork to our CD manufacturer. The digital and CD versions will both come out the same day - April 7th (Jesse’s birthday).
The album is another double-album - 22 tracks over two discs and 2 hours and is called In The Hours Left Until Dawn.
As ever, it is very much for you and, as always, your soaring vocals weave their way throughout the journey. Advance copies will head to some radio stations and music from here to Europe and beyond. I’ll let you know what we hear. As ever, it’s so very much for you.
With all my love.
Our most recent show for France’s great CAMP Radio aired yesterday, little sweetheart. It’s the anniversary of our first broadcasts - we’ve been doing this for a whole year, now! - and the show is now archived and up on the station’s MixCloud here. Thinking of you, always. Listen, little sweetheart - you're on the radio!
When we were putting together Til Morning, little sweetheart, I very much had something I'd long admired in mind.
Sometime around 2002 or 2003 I first heard the BBC broadcast of "Nine Lessons and Carols" - an annual Christmas Eve service performed by The Kings College Cambridge Choir. The mixture of spoken word and devotional music - much like Taize and Electric Hymnal - inspired me to want to do something in that vein.
The spoken word component was helped tremendously by the literal godsend of Sylvia coming into my life, into our life, and as she joined the band with you and I.
A further thing I admired about 9 Lessons was the tradition of a new work being commissioned each year for inclusion in the service. This often led to a piece being highly modern and I thought we should do something not unlike that. That as we placed older, less well known Christmas songs in new shoegaze-y arrangements, I also compose and record an experimental music piece to be at the album's center.
And that's what the track "Angel Frequency" is. Below is the video we did for it.
Happy Christmas, little sweetheart!
Another of our champions, little sweetheart, the legendary Irene Trudel included a track of ours on her Christmas show on WFMU this week. Another of my favorites from Til Morning, mostly because it features your soaring vocals. It’s "Noel".
The full show is amazing. It’s up on WFMU’s archive here. And the the track itself on Bandcamp here.
Happy Christmas, little sweetheart!
We’re nearing completion of the new album, our 11th (!), little sweetheart. Just about at final mixes. It’s another double album, 22 tracks over two discs and 2 hours, and you, as ever, are at its center. Much more on this in the coming days!
The new edition of our show for France’s CAMP Radio aired yesterday, little sweetheart, and is now archived online here.
Thinking of you, always, some of the artists include a really wonderful Detroit-based electronic musician named Swartz et, a sound collage artist named Ave Grave and the great Delia Derbyshire...
Hey, little sweetheart - you're on the radio!
We’ve continued this radio show, little sweetheart, that France’s CAMP Radio invited us to curate on their air. It’s considered a monthly show, but it's actually every 4 weeks, so it’s slightly more often than that (by a day or two!).
It always opens and closes with your voice - I composed a short theme song for the show and we both begin and end with it. It’s called Bipolar Explorer’s “The Other Room” and is one hour of deep listening soundscapes, experimental and ambient music, field recordings and otherness. After the show is broadcast, each edition is archived on the station’s MixCloud. The most recent is here.
Hey, little sweetheart - you’re on the radio!
Little sweetheart, the fifth edition of our show for France’s CAMP Radio aired yesterday and is now up, archived, on their MixCloud page. The link is here.
As ever, it’s a monthly hour of experimental and ambient music, field recordings and otherness. And also, as ever - it’s all for you!
With all my love…
Little sweetheart, the 4th episode of our show for France's CAMP Radio - Bipolar Explorer's "The Other Room" - aired yesterday and is now up on the station's MixCloud here.
We've been describing the show as a monthly one but it's actually every four weeks, so this is the second one in the month of March. As ever, it's an hour of experimental and ambient music, field recordings, spoken word, soundscapes and otherness but I also found myself compiling it very much with these days of March and all it brings to memory, in mind. As ever, it's so very much all for you.
With all my love forever...
Little sweetheart, the third episode of our show for France’s CAMP Radio - Bipolar Explorer’s “The Other Room” - has aired and is now up on the station’s MixCloud.
It’s a monthly show, technically, but actually is every 4 weeks, so there will be two shows in March, the second on the 29th. Again, it’s actually charted in the Top 100 in the global experimental charts.
As ever, it’s an hour of experimental and ambient music, field recordings and otherness - including a special track just for you. Link here.
Love you forever!!!
