My favorite thing about music is how it triggers memories—not of any particular event, but something more impressionistic, a general mood and atmosphere about a certain period of your life. For me, a lot of music tends to attach itself to a particular season, which is why I don’t listen to a whole lot of Built To Spill during the winter, and generally put away the Mazzy Star when it’s air conditioning season. Dreamer’s Book, Mascott’s second album, came out just after New Year’s 2004. Kendall Jane Meade, the woman behind Mascott, prefers to say “near Valentine’s Day, 2004,” as noted on the Red Panda website. I think she could’ve pushed it further; Dreamer’s Book is the record I pull out when spring is near. The album so perfectly evokes memories of flowering trees and crisp water melting through sidewalk ice, of the first tentative days of jacket-free weather and the first spring bike ride.

Guess what? Today’s the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. And even though it seems half of North America is still covered in snow, fret not: Kendall Jane Meade’s blissful brand of low-key dream pop is the musical equivalent of a spring thaw. Apparently Mascott has another album in the works, but in the meantime, there’s Dreamer’s Book to keep me company. It was one of my favorite albums of 2004, and it’s still one of my favorites today.