Monthly Masters: August 2026
A handful of records I mastered each month, the ones that stuck with me. Some for the songs, some for the people behind them, some just because the mix hit right.
A handful of records I mastered each month, the ones that stuck with me. Some for the songs, some for the people behind them, some just because the mix hit right.
Dan Deacon - Time and Water (Hollywood Records)
Dan Deacon's Time and Water is one I'm proud to have been part of. It scores Sara Dosa's Nat Geo doc on Iceland's vanishing glaciers, 23 tracks of dense, synth-layered textures that swing between hushed and huge. This one made me work for it: keeping the low end from turning to mud across that many layered synths, while still letting the quiet passages breathe before the huge ones hit, was a real balancing act. Mixed by Jason LaRocca. Out now on Hollywood Records. Always a treat working with a fellow Baltimorean.
SUNDAYCLUB - SUNDAYCLUB
SUNDAYCLUB's self-titled debut is a recent favorite of mine. It's the first full-length from the Winnipeg dream-pop duo of Courtney Carmichael and Nikki St. Pierre, four years in the making and worth every minute. Nine tracks of hazy, shimmering shoegaze, the kind where the guitars are meant to blur together like watercolor bleeding on wet paper. My job was making sure that haze stayed intentional rather than muddy: enough width to let the wall of guitars breathe, with the vocals floating just above the fog instead of drowning in it. Out now on Paper Bag Records.
Peals - The Compound 76 (Thrill Jockey Records)
Peals' The Compound 76 is a special one to have worked on. A 2016 live set from the Baltimore instrumental duo of William Cashion (Future Islands) and Bruce Willen (Double Dagger), recorded at the artist-run space The Compound. A live room recording comes with its own personality, and this one needed a decent amount of noise reduction to clean up without flattening it into something studio-sterile, keeping the room's character (a little grit, a little air) while working out the artifacts that noise reduction tends to leave behind. Eight tracks, out now on Thrill Jockey. Limited clear pink vinyl, so move quick.
Jeff Waters - Swimming Lessons
Jeff Waters' Swimming Lessons is a recent one I had the pleasure of mastering. It's his fourth album and, by his own account, his loudest and most fun to make. A record about adventure, love, and forward motion, trading the introspection of his earlier work for something that reaches out and cranks up. That shift in energy meant leaning into punch and immediacy on this one: drums up front, guitars with real bite, everything dialed for a record that wants to move rather than sit and think. Produced by Jeff Waters, Sean Mercer, and Greg Hatem. Eight tracks, out now on Bandcamp.
Maddie Ettrich - Strawberry Moon
Nashville's Maddie Ettrich brought me Strawberry Moon. Produced by Jared Corder and Ettrich herself, with Kristofer Jedd engineering. She calls it "bunny grunge," and that fits: pop hooks dripping through distortion-drenched guitars. The work was keeping her vocal cutting clean through all that fuzz, so the hooks still land against the density of the guitars. Out now, and already picking up spins on Lightning 100.
