Chime School

Marrying the pristine jangle of electric 12-string guitar and nervy, hooky songs, Chime School lives up to the band's name and goal of updating the indie pop sound of the Sarah-Creation-Subway labels in the mid- to late '80s. The project's self-titled 2021 debut album or 2024 follow-up The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel could have found a home on any of those labels. Chime School is a one-person affair, guided by Andy Pastalaniec, a veteran of many Bay Area pop groups. He started off playing drums for Pink Films in the early 2010s, joined shoegaze group Cruel Summer later in the decade, then held down the drum slot for dream pop band Seablite after that. While he was a vital part of each band, Pastalaniec harbored a desire to have his own group, something that began to take shape when he was given a four-track recorder in 2017. He started working on his own songs, honing his production and guitar skills and learning drum programming. Looking to merge his love of jangle pop through the ages, starting with the Byrds on through to the early Creation Records sound, Pastalaniec foregrounded the sound of electric 12-string guitar. The resulting sound led him to name the project Chime School, and due to the global pandemic in 2020, he had time to focus on finishing up a batch of songs. Slumberland Records was impressed enough by what the label heard to release the project's self-titled debut album in November 2021. Some live dates in support of the record followed, and the project returned in 2023 with a two-song single before issuing their next album in August 2024. That effort, The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel, continued Chime School's jangly trajectory with songs of peppy power pop and bittersweet indie jangle. ~ Tim Sendra, Rovi