It’s raining, and the camera tracks in toward the window of a yellow school bus. A young child, dripping wet, stares wistfully out the window at something. Cut to an over-the-shoulder shot as we see what the boy is staring at. It’s blurry due to the camera’s focus on the window, but that shifts to outside. We see a young girl twirling in the rain, her head tilted toward the sky, smiling as the teachers run in slow motion to usher her to the bus. What? Oh, something from Sharp Pins. Anything from the Radio DDR album that came out a few months back. Yeah, that one. Just use that in place of any sound…

I should be clear the above is not a dig. The trick of Kai Slater, who handles everything as a solo project away from his other gig as a member of the band Lifeguard, is his uncanny ability to sincerely embrace this woozy, ’60s pop confection without becoming twee.

I should also be clear that this sentence is coming four days later from the preceding one. The way this works is, I listen to the album a few times and, when I’m ready to write it up, I out it on and just start writing, letting whatever words will come, come. But I found with Radio DDR that I would stop, listen, and just listen again. I found myself getting up from the desk, moving to old as sin futon in this office and just falling into Slater’s voice. He has an incredible range: I thought it was a different, female singer on the poppy and vibrant “Lorelei” – how could that be the same singer as on the Guided By Voices indebted “Every Time I Hear” or the beautiful Beatles take “Circle All The Dots”?

It is in fact Slater, and those songs embrace this in-between state of ’60s pop and 90s indie rock. I can definitely hear the GBV/Pollard influence, but there’s something more vintage in how Slater crafts his jangly guitars and vocal harmonies that read both more youthful and more classic at the same time. “You Have A Way” definitely reaches that confectionary ’60s pop sound with its ooohs and aaahs, while the fuzzed attack of “When You KNOw” hits Lemonheads and – yes – GBV territory.

I love this album. It helped me realize the rush of adhering to this daily writing commitment isn’t as important as just sitting with the music, and letting it wash over you.

I needed Sharp Pins so bad this week; I just didn’t realize it until I heard it.