2018 comes to end with Michael and the band being honored for both of the Bipolar Explorer albums released - Sometimes in Dreams and Til Morning Is Nigh - last year.
Sometimes began the year praised by France's Indiemusic as "Unforgettable and essential - this is a major record" climbed the WFMU album charts, reaching the #19 spot by May and entering NACC's Top 200 simultaneously, before closing the year cited by Les Oreilles Curieuses for its "celestial and spell-bounding compositions alternating between spoken word and emotional flights of lyricism, astounding us with beauty. Brilliant, luminous and cathartic. Puts shoegaze back into a state of grace."
Til Morning, released on November 23rd, was equally praised both by the aforemention Les Oreilles Curieuses as "Dreamlike and enchanting" and by Portugal's Shoegazer who named it to their Best NYC Albums of the Year at the #5 spot.
The album also found praise from WFMU's Carol Crow, who premiered the album's signature track "Angel Frequency" on her show and described the album as "Ethereal music that sends the listener up towards the heavens to sit aloft on the clouds above. A melodic conversation of sound is taking place with gleaming angels shining in the bright blue sky, dulcet voices taking form and weaving their golden threads in and out of the musical expanse, as if taking their cue from the sun's warmth as it beams forth. A cloud coolly passes overhead for a moment and upon its passage, we feel the heat once again and the sun's rays shine even brighter than before. A truly ascendant album to be listened to any time of year."
So, today finds us looking back with gratitude for such kind words in a year where his life was nearly taken (literally leaving this life for 10 minutes in the ER) and looking forward with faith and purpose to 2019.
Michael's new project, Bipolar Explorer's sibling in dreampop, Tremosphere, will release their debut album, Interiors, on February 15th and work on the first book of memoirs for Summer continues with a fervent hope of publication by Christmas.
Again, thank you with love to all angels celestial and earthbound. With love and faith...