Windy Pop Weekender – Saturday

Slowly, Idle Ray became a real band. It started, vaguely, loosely, sometime in 2019 as one more solo project in a long line of solo projects from Michigan musician and songwriter Fred Thomas. Fred had been playing in various bands and on stages by himself for ages, with some of his best work coming in the form of melancholic, reverb-friendly pop from groups he was in such as Saturday Looks Good to Me and Failed Flowers. At first, Idle Ray was a continuation of that sound, and a return to the dreamy medium of four track cassette as a notepad for Thomas’ short, fuzzy, and always melodic songs. After releasing a self-titled LP in 2021, Idle Ray started booking shows, with bassist Devon Clausen, guitarist/vocalist Frances Ma, and drummer Emily Roll all gradually joining in. As more touring ensued, Nick German rocked the drums at times as well.

It took a couple of years, but this shift from Idle Ray being a solitary affair to more of a collective, breathing entity is reflected in the group’s second album, Even in the Spring. The songs are still captured in rusty colors on four track tape, the performances are energetic full-band affairs. Each songwriter contributes to the album, and each sings lead on the songs they wrote. The contrast in styles and perspectives makes every song on the album just a little bit different from all the rest, with a jumpy, jangly song like the Fred-sung “Backwards” feeling miles apart from the blurry shoegazeiness of Frances’ “Halo Undefined,” or Devon’s surfy “Die at Night,” but still connected. Additionally, the album underwent many, many revisions, with recording happening in phases over the course of the last three years. Different sessions had different drummers, and along with Emily’s minimal floor tom and snare approach and Nick’s powerful full-kit explosions, Jayson Gerycz (Cloud Nothings, Monocot) lends his intuitive playing to a few songs as well.

The ten songs that make up Even in the Spring zoom by in exactly 25 minutes. Despite the band writing and recording dozens of potential songs for this album, the brevity of the final product was a very intentional decision. The album is short and sweet by design, built on energetic hooks and genuine feelings of wonder and the sometimes painful search for clarity. Like some of the best records from the bands that inspire Idle Ray’s sound — the Clean, Orange Juice, Felt, Beat Happening, Guided by Voices, and the like — the album was designed to burn fast and be played on repeat by anyone who finds themselves especially connecting with its sounds. It’s the kind of record that can come to define someone’s spring, summer, or a less formally-ordained phase. The days that represent the start of something important, or the end, or the unknowing of the in-betweens that can ultimately change us even more.

Psychedelic pop project led by multi-instrumentalist Jennifer Baron, a founding member of Brooklyn’s The Ladybug Transistor (Merge Records, Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records), joined by a close constellation of friends and family. With instrumentation ranging from organs, synths and electric guitars, to saxophone, melodica and glockenspiel, The Garment District creates a kaleidoscopic sound combining indie pop, garage, heavy breaks, organ freak-outs, mystical Allegheny-specific lyrics, Velvets-esque jams, and evocative song titles.

Tambourina is a four piece dreampop/post punk band from Kalamazoo, MI, made up of brother/sister Mark Andrew Morris and April (Morris) Zimont, who started the twee pop/dreampop band, glowfriends in the early 2000’s. They are joined by Mark’s wife Holly Klutts-Morris on bass, and April’s husband, Adam Zimont on drums. The two couples are also in two respective side projects, Mark and Holly in Overly Polite Tornadoes, low fi-twee/dreampop duo, and April and Adam in Vida Eterna, a psychedelic, dreampop/shoegaze alternative act.

April and Mark are also responsible for starting the first independent shoegaze/dreampop fest in the US, Kalamashoegazer in 2007, in Kalamazoo, MI.

Modern Cults is power pop trash pop slacker pop rock. With continuing inspiration from Sparklehorse and an added dose of just cryptic enough songwriting from the likes of Stephen Malkmus and Alex G, Modern Cults is urgent and complex but easily accessible with melodies catchier than a cold.

“Lean, scruffy power-pop for punks who want to try their hand at ballroom dancing” -Leor Galil (The Chicago Reader)

Coming from Madison, WI, Gentle Brontosaurus is a five-piece indie-pop band who has been compared to Camera Obscura, Belle & Sebastian, and Velocity Girl.

Monogamy is a loud indie pop music quartet based in chicago il.