radius | Dub Techno Blog

In prelude to this year’s Movement Festival [Detroit], Echospace is proud to announce a brand new, three-part project culled from sounds created nearly 20 years ago. Radius’s “Interpolation Tapes” (Restoration One) is the first part in a series of three releases featuring future classics from the vault of Stephen Hitchell’s (cv313/echospace/intrusion) Radius project, a rich analog tapestry made in the heart of Detroit, Techno City. The music stems from cassette recordings conducted from 1994-2001 with nothing but analog/digital hardware, no computer in sight. The Radius project has been virtually absent since the final vinyl release in 2001, the first 12″ appearing in 1996 (limited white label run of 100 copies pressed at Acme pressing in Canada) after revisiting these works we realized there was truly some magic here which came to form with a double CD album, “Obsolete Machines” back in March, featuring beautiful reworks and reshapes from cv313. These were also part of the original tape sessions for a project initially sent to Rod Modell & Mike Schommer (for consideration for release on their brilliant deepchord imprint) back in 2001. Given their imprint was a home for their own personal recordings, this entire project has never seen the light of day. This work has been collecting dust in our cassette rack for nearly 20 years now and we’ve finally brought it all back to life.

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The entire album has been painstakingly restored from 20 year old cassette tapes, not an easy task but with alluring sonic results. Remastered using Apogee convertors and analog tape to preserve the integrity of the original masters. 2XCD set packaged in eco friendly digipak case with custom metallic artwork, housed in a resealable poly sleeve.

An unreleased classic from the vaults emerges with beautiful reshapes by cv313 (recorded and reshaped from 2007-2016) This is where the sound of cv313 was realized, culled from cassette tapes recorded live (1995-2000) with nothing but analog/digital hardware, no computer in sight (excluding our Commodore 64 midi sequencer, which is still alive and well today). The radius project has been absent since the final release in 2001, the first 12″ appearing in 1996 (limited white label run of 100 copies pressed at Acme pressing in Canada) after revisiting these works we realized there was truly some magic here. This project was initially sent to Rod Modell & Mike Schommer shortly after they launched their brilliant deepchord label in 2001. They were incredibly kind in saying it was the best demo they had ever heard and passed it on to Octal records for release, sadly, that didn’t materialize and since then these masters have been collecting dust in our cassette rack for nearly 20 years now. We’ve spent months doing our best to restore the old tapes from our Tascam 688, an 8 track cassette recorder purchased and abused since 1992 and to our ears still sounds quite impressive even by modern standards. (that is of course, if you can get past the tape hiss) We’ve had nearly every component replaced and re-calibrated to bring this obsolete machine back to life, it’s been a truly nostalgic experience re-visiting these masters.

We truly hope you enjoy reliving these magical times of music, very inspired by all that was happening in those years, there was just something in the air, an undeniable energy, long may it live on…
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Tags: radius

Radius – Interpolation tapes [restoration one]

Radius – obsolete machines [w/cv313 reshapes]