Artist: Sharp Pins, the band moniker of songwriter Kai Slater

Location: Chicago, IL

Buzz: Before Kai Slater has even cracked his 20s, he’s already lapping his peers in showcasing a study of rock ‘n roll history decades beyond just a ’90s nostalgia that was never lived through which most artists around his age currently are obsessed with. Although an argument can be made that Slater is doing just that to some extent in the noisier avenues of his main band, Lifeguard, with Sharp Pins, Slater turns the dial even further back to a time when sunny power-pop beaming through FM waves and straight into every mods’ longing gaze made the loudest impact.

A tutelage through a half century’s worth of early turntable rotations of the likes of early purveyors the Beatles, the Kinks and the Herman’s Hermits, and later, into the Nerves and the Soft Boys’ pre-punk transmissions are familiar touchstones on Radio DDR, his recently reissued and expanded debut album that’s out now on K Records’ imprint, Perennial — a fitting home for a sound that’s both timeless as well as refreshed from the perspective of a Gen-Z DIY scene wordsmith.

Slater’s messy lust for the innocently romantic leaves enough fringes on the record’s 14 hook-heavy songs, crackling and hissing with a lo-fi bite. Think of a spruced up Jay Reatard or Alvvays dreaming in greyscale. Though each of these songs may but but a few chords and a chorus and in turn, making them out to be a humbled formula in today’s production-heavy context, reintroducing the fine craft of pursuing the perfect hook through Slater’s fountain of youth keeps this style of rock as chic and shiny as it was yesterday.

Sound: Golden age power-pop vinyl converging with today’s DIY indie rock cassettes.

Recommended: “Every Time I Hear”, “I Can’t Stop”, and “Storma Lee” off his recently reissued debut album, Radio DDR

Sharp Pins’ Radio DDR is available now on K Records / Perennial.