Chime School : The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel
Here in the Bay Area, we just pulled out of what folks around these parts call “Fogust,” a time of the year when microclimates dominate local talk. It’s sunny and 80 degrees in The Mission, and a cool 60 that sometimes feels like 45 in parts of Daly City becomes just as important as chatter about the Giants not making as many splash hits, nor the playoffs. SF’s advection fog moves horizontally, gets low rolling, and dispatches different degrees to different neighborhoods, so you could leave the house in shorts and the weather makes you feel butt naked and wet. Or play the clothing layer game and come home 20 pounds lighter due to sweat.
But when I think of fall, it’s thrift store classic Pendleton wool shirts that come to mind to fight the weird and sudden afternoon into early evening chill. Fog can be a pain, especially in The Bay, but when I’m away from it, it’s easy to become unmoored within a TikTok second.
Chime School, the solo project of San Franciscan Andy Pastalaniec—he plays drums for the exquisite Seablite—crafted a melodic, perfectly Fogust-appropriate guitar-pop debut album in 2021 using a gifted cassette four-track portastudio “almost as a dare,” by and from his partner, compelling him to step out of the drum kit and into the spotlight. Dares advance progress, right? That launch manifested and bespoke an ongoing, ceaseless, bountiful, many-sided Bay Area jangle-friendly movement.
I’ll confess. I’ve caught the live show, and Chime School is quintessential guitar pop, live and direct, in sound, presentation, stature, and even in the hipster-terrific crowd following. But don’t think for one bloody hell of a second this outfit skirts on looks. No. They glow on those damn kaleidoscopic, picturesque hooks. Yes, I know. Teenage Fanclub, The Springfields, and numerous others get thrown in the buttermilk of influence—and yes, that’s the idea—Chime School is doing a thing about a thing, channeling three decades of UK indie pop from the back of the record store, if you get my meaning. But on his second LP, The Boy Who Ran the Paisley Hotel, released by the mighty Slumberland Records, Pastalaniec added some extra melancholia gold while recording it in his home studio on the foggy southern edge of San Francisco.
See what I mean about foggy SF?
Hands down, one of the most striking tunes this year has to be the earnest “Give Your Heart Away” that sways and hovers with those small touches, just the slightly bending chords, the golden short, catchy phrases, and riffs that tie the hummable chorus to the bridge, and then that sweet and solid guitar solo giving vibes, to and fro. “Wandering Song” continues that squeaky metallic shimmer melding the song’s arrangement, tip-top songcraft, to those bittersweet lyrics saying one thing and thinking another. Chime School follows up, meets the hype, and exceeds it with proper Pendleton wool shirt coverage prepping for that cool fog layer just waiting off the water.
Label: Slumberland
Year: 2024
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