Magnetic North – Release on Vinyl- Record Centre Records
I am pleased to announce the re release of Magnetic North on vinyl in co-operation with John Thompson of the Record Centre in Ottawa and Precision Records in Toronto. The album has been remastered on clear vinyl and now is a limited edition of three hundred, numbered copies. It is available through the Record Centre or through the www.iantamblyn.com website.
The story of this release might be of interest to the listener. Magnetic North was originally recorded in 1989-90 at Ambience Studio in Ottawa. was co- produced by myself and Phil Bova Sr. with engineering by Phil Bova Sr. and Marty Jones. At the time the album was not mastered because Phil wanted to maintain the dynamic range on the album. The album went on to sell over 50,000 copies and was nominated for a Juno in 1990.
In 2017 John Thompson and associates heard a cassette of this recording and enjoyed the sound of it. The cassette had been manufactured in real time by Ron Drake at Canatron Studios in Ottawa. John contacted me and wondered if I would be interested in releasing this album on vinyl. It was in some ways full circle for me because the first album I released was 200 copies of a vinyl album called Moosetracks. I agreed to join this venture. However, two years lapsed and John could not find a facility to transfer the tape which had been recorded on Dolby SR, a very good noise reduction system that was unfortunately, equally rare. John returned the tapes to me. Not content to let this opportunity go, I contacted an engineering friend, John Cybanski, to see if he knew any place with Dolby SR. There was one at Bath Studio near Kingston but they were unsure of its viability. Through John, I finally found a unit at Archives Canada and with the generous help of Chris Bradley and the Archives, he was able to transfer the original tapes. These transfers were then taken to Phil Shaw Bova Jr. who mastered them at his studio. Because we were now going from the original recordings we had to drop two tracks to conform to the vinyl process and the amount of time one can have on each side of a record. I chose to sacrifice “Kodiak Evening” and “Gargantua Dawn” and then resequenced the album. I decided with permission, to go back to the original cover which was a water colour of a beluga whale painted by David Brynaert. The album was then sent to Precision Record Pressing in Toronto. They sent the master to the Czech Republic where the “mothers” were cut and then Precision pressed the record on clear vinyl. I am really pleased with the results and grateful to all for bringing this project to fruition.
July 2020
