We had been circling this song for three weeks. Every take sounded close but never settled — too clean, too careful. Around 2am on a Tuesday, the noise floor of the room itself became the missing piece: a low hum from an old amp left running, bleeding faintly into every mic.

Instead of fighting it, we leaned in. That hum became the bed the whole arrangement rests on. Some of the best decisions in a studio are the ones you almost edit out.