Avid Dancer - 1st Bath (2015)

The songs you'll hear on 1st Bath contain some of the most kaleidoscopic, distinctly individual - and above all, honest - pop music you'll hear all year. Summers started Avid Dancer to express himself viscerally - sometimes literally. For 1st Bath's artwork, he wrote the album's title in, yes, his own blood over a collage of photos from his early childhood. "This music represents my entire existence up to making this record," Summers explains. "I wanted to really let people in, so I decided to paint the album title in my own blood. I actually jabbed myself until I got a big enough pool to write with. I mean, what could be more 'me'?" That philosophy boils down to the intensity suggested in Avid Dancer's moniker. "I realized the name matches what I'm doing musically," Summers says. "When we dance, we lose ourselves in it - we put ourselves out there and don't give a fuck. I'm not a guitar player, not a singer - I'm just putting myself out there with this music."