On a macro level, the band’s vision is realized and tasteful, but its individual elements blur where they once blended. Hyman’s chord progressions have grown more complex, providing a sturdier framework to drive her ruminative vocals into higher registers, while Smith has mostly shelved the trebly twee-punk timbres in favor of flower-power pastiche. Speaking to Chickfactor, Hyman offered a brief summary of the band’s two-step creative process: She writes “sad folk songs” in her apartment, and sends them over to Smith, who “turns them into indie pop gems.” Since their self-titled 2019 debut, each party has refined their respective craft. Bassist, guitarist, and drummer Jed Smith has performed in a few bands like My Teenage Stride over the past two decades, but Jeanines is the first serious project for singer and guitarist Alicia Hyman. Their second album, Do not Wait for a Sign, is Slumberland’s lone East Coast offering of 2022 thus far, and they’re relative newcomers to the imprint’s inner circle. New York City duo Jeanines are the odd band out among this latest batch of releases. As the label enters its 33rd year, founder Mike Schulman has ushered in a recent surge of activity, tapping the Bay Area’s wellspring of indie-pop talent to press a steady stream of revived acts, pseudo-supergroups, and scene veterans. Each entry, usually no longer than half an hour, is sewn into its patchwork gestalt, producing its own variant on the Slumberland formula: cute, fuzzy, and young at heart.
Like Sarah, Factory, or Sacred Bones, Oakland’s Slumberland is the sort of boutique record label that assumes its own persona.