The sound under the sound

Press play on an old cassette and before the music starts you hear it: a soft, even hiss, like rain on a distant roof. That is the tape itself — magnetic particles shuffling past the head, recording their own existence.

Engineers invented whole systems to hide that sound. Dolby B, Dolby C, noise gates. But for anyone who grew up with mixtapes, the hiss is part of the song. It means somebody sat by a radio with a finger on the record button.

Hiss is the room tone of the past.

Recording the nothing

For this issue we recorded thirty seconds of blank tape from twenty different cassettes found at flea markets. Each hiss is slightly different — brighter, warmer, more worn.

Played together, they sound like an ocean. We think it might be the most honest recording we have ever published.