03/02/2023
This is a big day in Polara and Ed Ackerson world. The 2nd and 3rd Polara albums are making their long overdue debut digital release on all of the major streaming platforms. Press release below.
SUSSTONES NEWS: 3 Polara Interscope Titles To Be Released Digitally
3 decades after they were originally released, 3 major label releases by pioneering Minneapolis Dream Pop band Polara are finally making their digital debuts on worldwide DSPs. Polara’s 2nd and 3rd albums, C’est La Vie (1997) and Formless/Functional (1998) are coming out on February 3. One week later on February 10 will see the release of the Pantomime EP (1996), which previewed C’est La Vie.
Polara, led by the late Ed Ackerson, burst out of the vibrant Minnesota rock scene in 1994 with their landmark self-titled debut album originally released on Clean Records, a subsidiary of the the legendary Twin/Tone label. After a considerable amount of buzz and a subsequent bidding war, Interscope signed Polara in 1995 and re-released their debut album. Widespread touring and recording during 1995 and 1996 led to Polara’s Interscope debut C’est La Vie in 1997 followed by Formless/Functional the following year. This was an intensely creative period for the band which saw them producing extremely well-crafted, sonically adventurous music that incorporated a blend of British influenced pop, rock, psych and shoegaze, seasoned with many of the groundbreaking new elements emanating from the teeming late 90s musical underground - “psychedelic hard rock ear candy” according to Dan Boen, who was so impressed after he heard the demos for Formless/Functional that he convinced Ackerson to let him join the band. This same sense of bold exploration also typified the later albums of Ackerson’s critically acclaimed previous band 27 Various, who released 5 albums between 1987 and 1992.
After a reissue of Polara in 2020, including its long overdue vinyl debut, these 3 new reissues are the last major items in the Polara catalog to be released digitally since Polara’s post-Interscope releases on Susstones in the 2000s were serviced to the DSPs in the last decade. Finally, the whole catalog of this important, underrated band will be readily accessible to old and new audiences alike.
This accomplishment is due in no small part to the tireless behind the scenes efforts of John Strohm, whose long resume includes stints in the Blake Babies, Lemonheads, Antenna (where he was joined by Ackerson) along with many solo releases, followed by subsequent careers as a music business executive and lawyer. Strohm was not only a longtime friend and bandmate of Ackerson, he was also heavily involved in the studio with recording the first Polara album - and joined a reconstituted Polara for a live performance at a Celebration of Life event a few months after Ackerson passed away in October 2019 - so this project is especially important to him.
