Phosphene Photo credit: Jeffrey Placencia
From Phosphene:
We’re thrilled to announce our fourth full-length album, Velveteen, will release on Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. It was tracked exclusively at Page St. Sound Lab in Portland, OR last February with Greg Francis returning as engineer and co-producer, marking our third straight partnership. It’s an album that brought new sounds and experiments into Phosphene, with each of us expanding our songwriting roles and abilities.
Velveteen was made during a period of intense personal adversity informed by abandonment and uncertainty. The struggle to be loved and accepted, and the liberation that comes from vulnerability and authenticity, serve as the backbone of this album. The process of writing and recording these songs was a sanctum for us both during this turbulent phase of life.
Velveteen itself is a fabric that forgoes a greater elegance for durability and structure, an essence we likened to this suite of songs. The album title is also a nod to one of our childhood favorites, The Velveteen Rabbit, which drove home lessons of self-love and resilience in the face of life’s harsh realities. It was Margery Williams who once stated, “It is the sadness which is inseparable from life, which has to do with growth and change and impermanence, and with the very essence of beauty.”
For us, Velveteen is a transformative and expansive album that embodies these motifs and contains our most personal and exploratory songwriting to date. It’s our hope that these songs resonate and empower others to embrace their soft sides.
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