Sharp Pins have announced the vinyl reissue of Mod Mayday 23 via K Records’ Perennial imprint, due 4th September, alongside a new standalone single ‘Saturday Sun’.
The record is an eleven-track cassette that Kai Slater, the Chicago musician behind Sharp Pins and also of Lifeguard and Dwaal Troupe, originally self-released as a teenager in 2023, dubbing approximately 50 copies by hand. It was recorded on a Tascam Porta One at his studio Stülo Gulo in Chicago, mixed and mastered by Slater himself, with Amy Dragon handling the mastering for this vinyl version. “The soundtrack to my 18th summer riding a Chinese Taotao 50cc scooter around Taqueria Moran and four-tracking my Sta-Prest-Dreams,” Slater has said of the sessions. “Recorded with an imaginary band of Men in Green Striped Trousers. The original Sharp Pins garagepopspew sound in all of its crustiness and yelping. Now my teenage dream is yours.”
The record draws on 1960s Carnaby Street imagery refracted through a lo-fi Chicago lens: The Kinks, The Move, Cleaners From Venus and Television Personalities are among the reference points, alongside the Mod revival spirit of the original Mods Mayday ’79 compilation that inspired the title.
‘Saturday Sun’, the new standalone single released alongside the announcement, is a new composition rather than an album track: a swaggering piece of garage-pop directed in a tour-life video by Jolie M-A.
Slater brings Sharp Pins to the UK this August for three dates.
10 Aug – King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow
11 Aug – The Deaf Institute, Manchester
12 Aug – ICA, London
