Interview: Solar Bears

Born out of a philosophy of never staying still, the album has almost nothing in common with your average chart-topper, but that didn’t stop it from receiving universally gushing reviews when it was released last month.
Not that its creators will be paying too much attention to the fanfare...
“It’s obviously extremely gratifying reading it,” says John Kowalski, one half of the band’s multi-instrumental make-up, “but it’s also a bit dangerous if you believe everything that’s been written. The circumstances haven’t changed, we still have to keep proving ourselves and we still have to keep experimenting and keep it interesting for ourselves.”
For album number two, the boundary-pushing producers were determined to take themselves out of their comfort zone. In forcing themselves to work quickly and rely on their instincts, they sometimes saw a song through from concept to near-completion in an hour or two.
“It does kind of contrast with the idea that certain things should be slaved over,” Kowalski explains. “One approach we used is Best Idea, First Idea, where it has to be the first idea that comes into your head, just so it’s completely spontaneous and doesn’t have anything to do with the records you’re into or what you consider to be your style of music.”
Sound tricky? The duo’s experiments didn’t end there.
“Another thing that we use is automatic writing which is there’s no conscious thought, it’s just literally what’s coming out and you listen back and edit together the best parts. That’s a ploy that we use for song titles and album titles, where we just get them down and make sense of them later. This is all territory that bands can and should try out because it’s been incredibly beneficial for us.”
Aside from the haunting Bulgarian women’s choir that turns up on ‘Love Is All’, Supermigration features just two voices, both of which will be familiar to the discerning music lover. Fellow Planet Mu signee Sarah P of Greek duo Keep Shelly In Athens added a striking verse to ‘Alpha People’, while Air collaborator Beth Hirsch also contributed her lungs to the project.
“Beth Hirsch is obviously someone we admire for collaborative ability,” Kowalski says. “Because of the nature of the guitar riff in ‘Our Future Is Underground’, we wanted a certain shade in the vocal and it came to light that she’d be ideal based on the tone of the piano and the guitar. She came straight back and said that she loved the track and she had a vocal line straight away. She recorded it in a studio in Paris and sent it back. Then we added a few more pieces to the mix and made it more aggressive. There’s a certain bass drum that comes in and I think that might be a bit unexpected for a lot of people.”
It’s far from the only sonic surprise on the 12-tracker, which boasts soundscapes ranging from the sweet and gentle to the harsh and stomping.
“It’s just a case of trying things out until it fits,” Kowalski shrugs. “There’s no reason to stick to a certain BPM, the same way there’s no reason to stick to a certain style, it just doesn’t suit us at all.
“I don’t understand why sameness is celebrated so frequently,” he adds. “People have to realise that artists mightn’t be able to stick to the same style. It mightn’t interest them at all and it has nothing to do with inconsistency and a lack of focus. It’s the opposite, it’s about pure focus and being genuine.”
Solar Bears may not write songs to court the masses, but with shows lined up in the UK, Holland and Spain, not to mention their Forbidden Fruit gig on June 2, they’re not about to leave everything to chance.
“We were conscious of writing more dance tracks this time,” Kowalski admits. “That was something that pushed us into making harder pieces of music. If we’re playing a club in Zurich or Amsterdam and we’re looking people right in the eye, you kind of know that you have to hit harder, so even if we have a piece of music that we’re really happy with, we know that we have to go up a level in terms of intensity or just to hammer something home a bit more. You can’t assume to be completely in the know.”
Having performed at dance festivals all over Europe since the release of first LP She Was Coloured In, the duo have grown their live show from a neat, two-man set-up, to a multi-sensory audio visual show, complete with full band, trippy visuals and club-style lighting.
“There’s an exchange there in a live setting that has to be taken into account, otherwise you’re not really paying attention to what matters,” Kowalski stresses. “You have to win them over and sometimes that requires darkness and sometimes that requires something that isn’t particularly polite, whether that’s white noise or strobe lighting or the fact that we’re locking into a groove that’s pretty heavy.”
Team Hot Press witnessed all of this and more at the album’s Dublin launch, where we were shocked to find audience members actually engaging with the music, rather than snapping manically on their iPhones or plotting their next trip to the bar.
“It’s definitely something we’re conscious of,” Kowalski adds. “We don’t want people leaving the venue thinking that they’ve seem something that’s pretty pedestrian.”

Supermigration is out now on Planet Mu. Solar Bears play Forbidden Fruit on the Sunday.