It’s probably not too soon to call Kai Slater a generational talent. In 2025 alone, his post-punk trio Lifeguard properly took off with their Matador-released debut album “Ripped and Torn” meanwhile, he continued garnering buzz around his solo project Sharp Pins with the one-two punch of LPs “Radio DDR” and “Balloon Balloon Balloon“.
But before all that, in 2023, an 18-year-old Slater made an album called “Mod Mayday 23” on an 8-track recorder, self-releasing it in a very limited run of about 50 cassettes. The record is a tribute to Mods Mayday ‘79, a 1979 compilation featuring various bands of London’s underground punk scene that would, decades later, inform Sharp Pins’ sound.
Now with a new wide release via K Records imprint Perennial, “Mod Mayday 23” documents Slater using these existing songs to hone in on his own artistic voice in real time. Catchy, spunky, and about as lo-fi as you can get, this batch of brilliant cover songs will likely soon serve as an artifact of a modern rock and roll star in the making.
The Fat Angel Sings 