Analysis
Vinyl pressing plants are booked until spring
Small labels wait nine months for a thousand records while anniversary reissues fill the queue. A few have started building presses of their own.
Culture editor
6 min read
Most of the machines still pressing records were built before 1985.
The record is finished. It was finished in January. It will reach the shops in November, if the plant keeps its slot.
For independent labels, the wait has become part of the release plan.
A queue with no fast lane
There are fewer than a hundred pressing plants in the world and most run machines that are older than their operators. When a major label orders 300,000 copies of a reissue, everyone behind it waits.
We announce an album when the boxes arrive, not before. We learned that the expensive way.
Some labels now press in two countries to spread the risk. Others have gone back to cassettes for first editions, which can be turned around in three weeks.
Building their own
Four new plants opened in Europe last year, three of them owned by groups of labels. The machines are new, the capacity is small, and the order books were full before the first record came off the line.
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Sofia Brandt
Culture editor
Sofia edits the culture pages and writes about music, work and the crafts we are losing.
