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 could have found a home on any of those labels.
The band 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 began 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, he 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. ~ Tim Sendra