by Patrick Daul (@patrickdaul425)
Kai Slater likes to keep busy. As in really busy. Not only is he part of budding Chicago post-punk trio Lifeguard and psychedelic folk group Dwaal Troupe, but Slater has made a name for himself penning kaleidoscopic retro pop tunes under his Sharp Pins project. Sprinkle in some not-so-light editorial and publishing duties for Chicago DIY zine Hallogallo, and that probably exceeds a 40-hour work week. But scattered as his efforts might seem, Slater is pumping out quality with the quantity. Lifeguard has maintained an impressive level of quality control, and Slater’s endeavors with Sharp Pins have been no different. 2025’s Radio DDR and Balloon Balloon Balloon expanded brilliantly on scratchy freshman release Turtle Rock, and recent single “Saturday Sun” suggests there’s even more to come.
It seems the cupboard is hardly bare, as Slater regularly pulls out material from his backlog. This time, it’s the vinyl and digital release of a cassette he recorded on his four-track (he makes sure to point out that it was specifically a Tascam Porta One, which gives you an idea of how infatuated he is with the bedroom recording process) when he was a teenager. Mod Mayday 23 is a collection of covers and rough recordings now remastered for a considerably larger audience. While the most obvious Sharp Pins comparisons come by way of the Beatles and Guided By Voices, these selections give new clarity into the touchpoints he’s actually going off. The album's concept and name riff on the Mods Mayday ‘79 compilation documenting the British pop scene of bands like Squire and The (aptly-named) Mods. Listening through the 23 edition of Mods Mayday, it’s easy to picture Slater stumbling upon a beat-up copy of MM79 at his local record store and having the course of his life altered.
“It’s a Mod Mod World” sets your expectations immediately. These aren’t 60s pop tunes pretentiously reworked with 50+ years of musical context. These are songs that Slater desperately loves and wanted to record in his own. He, of course, applies his jangly signature all over the record, especially on cuts like “The Face of Youth Today.”
Slater’s career is still so green that it’s hard to differentiate between “early” and “late” periods of his output, but you can trace his progress from Mod Mayday 23 to Turtle Rock to his pair of 2025 releases and beyond. The performances on these songs sound more raw than on the 60s bubblegum hooks of “I Don't Have the Heart” or “If I Was Ever Lonely.” It’s not quite the acid-soaked Kinks worship of 2010s-era Ty Segall, but many of the tracks operate at higher BPMs than recent efforts. More energetic, but no less whimsical, “Let Me Be The One” and “Love Only Me” (The Mods) almost play like punk songs.
“B-A-B-Y Baby Love” falls in line with the aforementioned bubblegum, with some nifty bass propelling Slater’s endlessly fun pop falsetto and smart fretwork. Slater incorporates added flavor on Squire’s “Live Without Her Love” with psychedelic soloing and harmonica that play like you just hopped on a train to escape something mundane. It’s the most dynamic song on the record, and one that might lend some rowdiness to future Sharp Pins shows.
The clearest-sounding recording has to be “Tonight’s The Night” (The Mods). Mastering engineer Amy Dragon has a tightrope to walk in deciding which layers of Slater’s guitar fuzz and vocal echoes stay or go. Allowing a little more fidelity paid dividends with this track, as his belting vocal performance is both fun and technically impressive. This is also the closest Sharp Pins sound to some of the 2000s indie rock that may or may not inform their sound.
The percussion-less “Days Of Change” is one of the more subdued tracks on the album, with Slater strumming his acoustic below his muffled and wistful crooning. Whether intentional or not, he sounds like he’s performing at the other end of a park. Conversely, demo track “Race For The Audience” feels like Slater is sharing it with just you. The production quality on this record is hard to quantify, but it’s clear he knows what he’s doing with a home recording rig. In fact, even if you put Sharp Pins in a world-class studio with a $200,000 budget, Slater is so committed to this aesthetic there’s a non-zero chance they’re putting out a record that sounds exactly like Mod Mayday 23.
If you’re going to dabble in pastiche, you better have the chops to ensure you’re actually bringing something to the table. Slater is less of a vibe merchant than many of his retro counterparts, instead relying on strong songcraft and well-appointed arrangements. Sure, the lo-fi nature of his Sharp Pins recordings will always shoe him into a certain corner, but it's not like he's one of those kids lurking in a bedroom filled with Beatles ephemera wholly subsumed in the past. He’s prolific, indispensable to his local scene, and he dabbles in different styles of rock and pop so that things don’t get stale. Even better, he's nowhere near the point of diminishing returns.