Following on from the critical praise of their second album Supermigration, Solar Bears have joined the ranks of Sunday Best, home to one of their heroes David Lynch. Hailing from the east coast of Ireland the band features two members, John Kowalski and Rian Trench, who met at sound engineering college. The acclaimed British label Planet Mu picked up their first three releases which featured everything from krautrock to library music to psychedelic electronica.
The band’s love of cinema and experimental film has been cemented due to a long term collaborative relationship with the American director Michael Robinson. Solar Bears return in 2016 with their highly anticipated third LP which is the result of Kowalski’s continued crate digging and Trench’s extensive production work.
Michael Robinson (b. 1977, Detroit, MI) has a creative history spanning both still and time-based media. At an early age he held simultaneous interests in fiction, poetry and illustration, which later coalesced in the synthesis of experimental animation and short film. This led to explorations purely in realms of light, abstraction, texture and colour–interfacing with imagery in site-specific settings to live music; a diametric approach to working with frame by frame minutiae. He has collaborated with Ant Yeti Ant, µllet áp, Thinking Machines, Solar Bears, Bibio, Ronika, and The Go! Team in the forms of music video/visual accompaniment across a variety of mediums, tools, and techniques. His work has been featured by the Underground Film Journal, Warp Records, Planet Mu, The Creators Project, Resident Advisor, Pitchfork, XLRR8R, Buzzfeed, Stereogum, Fact Magazine, Gorilla Vs. Bear, Nialer9, Tiny Mix Tapes, The Line Of Best Fit, Dummy Magazine, Dangerous Minds, Ad Hoc, Death and Taxes, and has been screened by MicroCineFest, the Boston Underground Film Festival, the Maryland Film Festival and the Echo Park Film Center. He has been a core member of Moviate, an organization dedicated to bringing underground, independent and avant-garde film and music to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania since 2006.
