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\n\tMusical inspiration can be a funny thing. Sometimes, the songs only emerge after months of work in a high-end studio packed with expensive gear and just the right mix of collaborators. Other times, all you need is one brain overflowing with ideas in a tiny room. That\u2019s how it is for Kai Slater when he records as Sharp Pins<\/a>. The Chicago<\/a>-based musician, who recently celebrated his 21st birthday, has spent the last few years rocking out as the lead singer and guitarist of Lifeguard<\/a>, a loud, jittery trio who released a terrific debut album<\/a> this summer. All the while, he\u2019s been quietly crafting one incandescently catchy DIY pop hook after another on the side with his solo project \u2014 and with Balloon Balloon Balloon<\/em><\/a>, the superb new Sharp Pins album he\u2019s releasing on Nov. 21 through K<\/a>\/Perennial<\/a>, you\u2019ll get to hear more of them than ever.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI recorded this album basically whenever I had time, which was not that much, compared to the average Joe,\u201d Slater explains over Zoom from the bedroom where he makes all of Sharp Pins\u2019 music. He was home for a while in between back-to-back Lifeguard<\/a> tours when he knocked out most of the songs on the album in early 2025, \u201cjust working on stuff in a kind of therapeutic way, having fun with it.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBalloon Balloon Balloon<\/em> is fun for you, too \u2014\u00a0a sheer delight for any fan of homemade guitar pop. Every song on this album is full of psychedelic sunshine and jangly joy, teeming with melodies that snuck into Slater\u2019s head and wouldn\u2019t leave until he got them down on tape. There are ample echoes of the Beatles and the Byrds, to the point that if someone told you this was a lost private-press LP by an unknown band from the mid-to-late Sixties, you\u2019d probably buy it.<\/p>\n