The Tensai CR-390 is recorded as a radio-cassette machine with an integrated rhythm section. A collector catalogue tentatively lists 1978, with question marks; that uncertainty remains part of the record. What is clear is the design idea: a portable recorder that could supply its own beat, accept an overdub and travel without a separate rhythm box.
The beat is built into the recorder
The CR-390 makes its case at a glance. Its front panel is a cassette recorder and radio, but its makers also gave it a dedicated Rhythm setting and a row of preset buttons. The catalogue record identifies Waltz, Slow Rock, Rock Beat, Rhumba, Beguine, Cha-Cha-Cha and Mambo, plus an After Recording System. It is a rhythm machine for someone who might be making a demo on the kitchen table rather than assembling a studio rack.
One box, several names
The same chassis appears in documentation under Tensai, Fair Mate CR 390 and Lehnert Studio 5000 names. Those badge routes explain why the machine can feel absent from conventional drum-machine histories: it was sold as a portable audio system as much as an instrument. The retained Tensai photograph is later survivor evidence; it shows the exact badge and front-panel layout, not a dated product launch.
A Tensai in the early Dead Can Dance story
Brendan Perry recalls a portable Tensai cassette recorder with built-in rhythms in the early Dead Can Dance setup. He says Labour Of Love was made with it, using the rhythm machine and bassline on one track while voice and guitar were overdubbed. Perry does not name the CR-390, so the connection belongs to the wider Tensai rhythm-recorder story—not a model-specific credit.
Watch Dead Can Dance — Labour of Love on YouTube ↗
Dead Can Dance — Labour of Love (BBC Session), supplied on the official artist channel. The interview identifies an unnamed Tensai rhythm recorder in the song’s making; the video is included as the record, not as a claim about the visible machine.
Sources
The visual archive