It’s quiet. The air is heavy with anticipation as a crowd gathers to take their seats in the intimate Apartment 5 at the Supersense Palazzo. Housed in a former Venetian-style palace, Supersense music store and café is situated in the heart of Vienna and was founded by Florian “Doc” Kaps – an Austrian entrepreneur credited with saving Polaroid film from extinction. 

It was also the setting for a very special and rare live recording session, which took place on a balmy Thursday last April and only the third of its kind to take place in the world. 

A champion of analogue music, not just for its nostalgic properties but for its place in the human experience, Kaps – in collaboration with Universal Music Austria – is doing something no one else in the world is doing. He has launched a series of high-end records, directly recorded to analogue tape before being transferred onto Japanese playback lacquers. The result is a record that plays the music we’ve all heard before, like you’ve never heard it before. 

Such is the furore around Kaps’s unique approach to music, in 2016, Grammy winner Gregory Porter entered the living room stage at Supersense to record a selection of his songs. Then, in 2022 multi-award-winning songwriter Guy Chambers, best known for working alongside artists such as Tina Turner, Mark Ronson and Robbie Williams, recorded songs from his debut solo album Go Gentle into the Light, including hits such as Angels, Millennium and The Road to Mandalay.

Most recently, London-born acoustic singer Jack Savoretti – who released his eighth album last year – took to the living room stage, alongside Shannon Harris on piano, guitar in hand, to be the next in recording history to bring a truly immersive listening experience to the world’s audiophiles. Upstairs, hits such as Candlelight, Come Posso Raccontare, What More Can I Do and an off-the-recordimprovised rendition of Dr Frankenstein were performed, while downstairs the Mastercut was being created, overseen by sound engineer David Küblböck.

Beneath the soaring arches and Art Nouveau architecture, the playback was prepared in real time, meaning no editing and no Auto-Tune. Following the performance, in the analogue treasure trove behind the café, an intimate crowd gathered for a first listen to the limited-edition vinyl recording. 

The only word that seems appropriate for the Mastercut is “resurrection”. Much less a musical phantom roaming the trinket-lined walls than a living, enveloping voice. There is vitality and soul in the sound that goes beyond a replay – it is music in HD.

‘The development of my Mastercut dream here at Supersense – my little all-analogue palace in Vienna – has been a long and very bumpy road,’ says Kaps. ‘But the moment the needle touched this latest Live Recording Edition, I had exactly the same goosebumps I had when listening to Jack and Shannon’s intimate recording live, back on that very special night last April, confirming that, once again, we had achieved our ambition all those years ago, and entered a new level of authenticity and listening experience.’

The Mastercut, released on 9 March, features a Minolta EP-410Z photocopy of the handwritten setlist, a cyanotype print of an original photo from the evening by Lousy Auber, a Polaroid photograph of a microscopic view of the actual groove from side A, track 1, Candlelight and a Risograph print of Savoretti’s signature.

Remembering the evening, Savoretti praises Kaps and the Supersense team. ‘What Doc has created with Mastercut is truly extraordinary,’ he says. ‘He really is a maverick, and to be invited to Supersense for only the third-ever Live Recording was a privilege. As a musician, to strip everything back to its rawest form, and then be able to share that experience with others via my Edition, is something pretty unique.’

Jack Savoretti Live at Supersense is now available to order at the.supersense.com