It starts with a lacquer — a soft aluminium disc coated in nitrocellulose, spinning under a heated cutting stylus while the master plays back in real time. There is no undo. If the cut skips, you start again.
The first test pressing is the first time the record sounds like a record, and not like a file.
From the lacquer comes the father, then the mother, then the stamper — each a negative of the last, the way a fossil holds the shape of the thing that pressed it. The stamper is what actually meets the hot vinyl biscuit in the press.
Then the label goes on, the sleeve gets stuffed, and a box of records arrives at the office smelling faintly of warm plastic. We play the first one straight through, every time. It is the only quality check that matters.
