After 5 years under exclusive licensing agreement, this highly sought after debut album by Soultek is finally available in re-mastererd digital format with two unreleased (digital exclusive) remixes from the vault. This marks the debut double CD album from the Soultek guise (circa 1993-2003) of Echospace's Stephen Hitchell which was originally

After 5 years under exclusive licensing agreement, this highly sought after debut album by Soultek is finally available in re-mastererd digital format with two unreleased (digital exclusive) remixes from the vault. This marks the debut double CD album from the Soultek guise (circa 1993-2003) of Echospace's Stephen Hitchell which was originally released as a Japan exclusive. The album features remastered content originally available on UK techno pioneer and Fat Cat Records founder, Lee Purkis's (In Sync) label, Fortune8. On Disk 2, there are rarities from the archives originally licensed to forcetracks / Force Inc, however, due to the insolvency of their distributor (EFA), these recordings never saw the light of day and were never made available, until now. After nearly 20 years of sitting on tape, the material has aged like a fine wine; quite a pleasure to bring these recordings back to life... From our hearts to yours!

Past Highlights + Comments:

Mentions and reviews in The Wire, De-Bug, Groove, GO!, XLR8R, URB and many others..

What is it that makes a great track? Mood? Arrangement? Beats? The message? This has it all. The intro evolves from a combination of pads, vocals, and a deep electronic bass. A landscape of dark house with a touch of dub spreads it out. The vocals add a glimmer of hope to this landscape and the experience is absolutely beautiful! -XLR8R

Steve Hitchell returns with this second twelve for Fortune8 in almost as many weeks, and his love of Detroit techno is on full display on the shimmering title track, a kind of vintage Motor City session in 4/4 that brings to mind classic Carl Craig or even Stasis if you want to look for reference closer to this side of the pond. "Elektrikcity" on the flip has a more Chicago House vibe to it, though Hitchell's signature pads make a swift appearance and disperse their upbeat introspection through to every last pore. "Forever Feeling" closes the set with another Detroit standard, the synth progressions taking up the dual role of melody and bassline - the kind of musical conceit we just adore! -Boomkat

Okay, so here we have the first in a batch of all new twelve inch releases from the Echospace camp. Having listened to all previous works by Stephen Hitchell aka Soultek, I gotta say this one came as a total surprise. This isn’t the kind of ‘techy’ house sound we’ve heard prior, the tracks here head in a totally new direction for this producer and we feel are far more creative, taking us to where Hitchell is really coming from with his sound – tracks that are moody, introspective, tentative, while encapsulating the true funk and soul of Detroit techno that we all love. If there is more material from Steve in the vein of this release, then we simply can’t wait for the next twelve inch. -Interstellar Sounds

He offers a pounding project of tech-ed out dub. Applying Chicago fundamentals to warm, dubby synths & basslines of some of the most contagious hooks you'll ever hear. -Clone

Perfekte Maxi durch und durch! Soultek, der sonst, wenn er nicht mit Modell an Echospace arbeitet, eher von der zackigen, sehr stark sequenzierten Truppe ist, überrascht auf seiner neuen E.P. mit durch die Bank weichen und fast schon ungewöhnlichen Tracks. Viel Wärme, klar, aber auch viele akustische Samples und Downtempo-Passagen, die vielleicht am ehesten mit den B-Seiten von alten Drum-and-Bass-Maxis zu vergleichen sind, wo die Helden der Finsternis plötzlich handzahm wurden. “Lighter Path” auf der B-Seite ist dann typischer Detroit-Afterhour-Sound. Wenn es den überhaupt gibt. Die Roland-Box tuckert und alles glitzert. Einfach alles. -DeBug, DE

More goodness from Steve Hitchell, one half of Deepchord's Echospace project, the man behind the excellent Echospace imprint, and noted producer in his own right under the Soultek moniker. "Clouds Overhead" offers deeply melodic material from Hitchell, finding a more sugar-coated equilibrium between the dense constructions of echospace and more open, welcoming melodic structures that hark back to classic electronic music of the mid to late 1990's. Hitchell has a beautifully intuitive grasp of song construction - he makes the kind of instrumental music that tugs at the heartstrings without ever resorting to sappy ingredients, instead delivering weighty dancefloor material that just happens to revolve around beautiful, melodic interiors. lovely stuff. -Boomkat

While Soultek's debut EP for Fortune8 dips into the lighter realms of jazz/funk, this immediate follow-up is direct in its purist techno approach. The techy, micro-house sounds of earlier Soultek are gone and here, once again, we hear Steve Hitchell as we have never heard him before. No fuss, no gimmicks, as quite simply, this is good, solid, honest techno with of course its roots firmly in the Motor City. Definitely Steve's best release to date. -Interstellar Sounds

Ein herrlich epischer Track, diese A-Seite auf der neuen Maxi von Steve Hitchell. Weiche Chords und kleine japanische Percussion-Grillen machen hier das klassische Liebeslied zum Floor-Killer, wenn die Sonne schon wieder am Himmel steht. Und es geht auch Afterhour-mäßig weiter. “Electrikcity” ist langsam wabernde Detroiter Luft, statisch und doch immer im Bewegung mit dem digitalen Atem der endlosen Duracell-Hasen. “Forever Feeling” läutet dann schon wieder den nächsten Peak am Abend ein. -DeBug, DE

Excellent Stephen Hitchel release. Dreamy broken techno (think early UK techno/electronica), a deep & straight-forward technotrack, and a jazzy downtempo workout. -Clone

Written and produced by Stephen Hitchell from 1993-2013, additional mastering and engineering by Ron Murphy @ NSC, Detroit. (R.I.P.), Mark Richardson @ Prairie Cat, Alex Gross @ Studio 11 & Nils (R.I.P.) @ The Exchange, London, England. Additional mixing and engineering by Thomas Peter Heckmann in Mainz, Germany. Remastered in echospace by S.H.