Soft Cycle by Sighchain

*Soft Cycle* started as a sleepless night in a laundromat, the washers ticking like clocks that felt stuck. We wanted to make something that really breathes, where every sidechained inhale turns a memory into rhythm, but still felt warm, melodic, and had drums that sit right in your pocket. Cal "Ms. Feedback" Morales was convinced her MPC tapes couldn’t hold what was breaking inside us. Then Langston Vale stepped in, his tenor ribbon-smooth, and suddenly that mic-check beep became the second hand of our own time. The Leslie-wobbled sub-bass? It felt like a nervous pulse finally learning to steady itself.

This album isn't just a collection of songs; it’s a narrative, a full shift lived out in trap-soul, jazz hop, and neo-soul. Neighbors came, fed coins into the drums, and their stories layered in—warm-cotton chords, J Dilla’s lopsided swing, talkbox-pinched flugelhorn. We revisited first kisses, the panic of lost keys, the phone calls we never returned. It showed us how these small, everyday rituals somehow keep us from drowning. Early on, "Lint Halo" samples those dryer ticks, then Langston comes from behind that therapist’s curtain, promising to sing the breaks in sighs like vows. The mic-check beep in "Secondhand Beep" guides hearts that missed their exits, the whole thing feeling like a whispered-to-satin duet. Then "Warm Cotton Vow" takes a neighbor's story about a lost ring and knits it into a promise that we'd keep each other above water.

Around the eighth track, "Breaker Prayer," the power trips, the machines stall. It's that moment the room holds its breath. In that naked quiet, with only lungs keeping count, we found ourselves choosing belief. That’s when "Re-Breathe" explodes, the pocket surges, Langston roaring, "We don’t rewind—we re-breathe." It’s a cathartic bridge that says we're turning doubt into conviction, right there in the quiet glow. The breakout single, "Stains Let Go," rides this velvet trap pocket, Langston pleading, "Hold me through the cycles till the stains let go." It’s our mantra, "Wash, rinse, believe," echoed like a secret stitched into sleeves, a trumpet countermelody blooming, feeling like group therapy under cassette LEDs.

We didn’t just record music; we turned sighs into drums and laundry into liturgy. This is about taking the tension, the quiet storm, the G-funk bounce, and the soul jazz depth to tell a story many of us live. It’s for grown kids who never had recess, a blueprint for remembering forward, for finding the strength in vulnerability. Our sound is meant to feel like a packed bench on visiting day, the low end wobbling like a lie detector, the high hats exhaling grief. From Langston’s velvet tone to Ms. Feedback’s MPC chops, we wanted this to feel intensely personal, a shared act of courage. It’s why "Lost Keys Kept" after the surge lets everyone laugh the kind of laugh that hurts, and "Receipt Wall" closes the night with crumpled slips, a soft circle around hard-won faith, looping back to the start like a kind hand saying, "we made it." We hope it offers a similar kind of quiet peace.

We bottle those quiet exhales and late-night thoughts. Our rhythms for the tired, for the real ones. Check it.