Kraftwerk cassettes

TRANS-EUROPA EXPRESS (Australia, 1980s) Capitol TC-MID-166109 Back to Australia again! From a Kraftwerk cassette collector's perspective they put out quite a lot of interesting releases - certainly more than I knew when I started collecting! Most cassettes from Australia - whether first-issue or re-release - come with nicely un-imaginative design; sometimes based on the UK cassette counterparts, sometimes just the LP front against a white background. This one, which I think is from 1987, falls into the latter category, and looks like you'd expect it to if you've seen the LP version with colour front (as released in Australia, and also UK, US, Japan, Sweden and others, I talked at some length about it in an earlier post ). There's no mistaking it for the first edition though, as the LP design is moved towards the middle of the front, with the band name above. It looks like this cassette is the counterpart to a 1987 mid-price reissue on LP, with the same catalogue nu...

THE MAN·MACHINE (Greece, RE 198x?) Capitol 14C 262-854444 Time for a Greek re-edition of The Man·Machine! I don't have that many Greek cassettes, but let's at least see the ones I have... It's been nearly a year since I presented the original ! The Man·Machine came in several variants in Greece, but the differences are pretty minor. EMI changed address at some point, so the address printed on the J-card is different on this than on the original, and this edition has on-body print instead of paper labels. (There is also another reissue which has green on-body print, which I hope to put up in a future post!) The J-card is still 2-panel, printed on one side only, and the design is almost the same as the first edition, except the contact details as mentioned. It's the details that make for a collection!

AUTOBAHN (1985, France) EMI/ Pathé Marconi 2400704 Another recent acquisition today, a French reissue of Autobahn. I had no idea this existed until I stumbled upon it - although that says more about me than about the item I suppose. As we've seen across this blog, most countries would put out different versions of an album, changing the label or J-card as the old ones sold out. The 1985 reissue of Autobahn was more like a full-scale reissue, sanctioned and remixed by the band, and with an updated version of Emil Schult's landscape painting on the front (without the VW dashboard from the 1975 original). While some cassette editions would crop the image, this one has the full LP image, facsimile-style on the front. Below, the band name in large red letters is more in keeping with other designs from the record label than with how Autobahn was presented everywhere else... , The lower inch or so of the sleeve is made up of logos, three record labels and two indicating loads of soun...

THE TELEPHONE CALL (UK, 1987) EMI (no cat.no) So. Yeah. It's been a while. What I have here today though, is something quite special: An Abbey Road Studios cassette from 1987, featuring their single The Telephone Call. The single was released on 7" and 12" in the UK (and in many territories), but not on cassette - neither in the UK, nor, as far as I know, anywhere else. And this cassette isn't actually  a "release" in the standard definition, either - certainly not available in shops, or even sent out as a promotional item...     As often happens in this blog, actual fact is hard to come by, and I can't say I know exactly what this cassette is or does. At a guess, it is a listening copy for studio use, to check the mastering prior to pressing up acetates or white label promos. At least, this is not a factory print of a cassette. In fact, the cassette is a TDK AD C-46, probably the sort you could buy in shops in 1987, and the cover is printed or colour co...

RADIO-ACTIVITY (Spain, 1976?) Unofficial Crown (no cat.no.) And we're back, with another unofficial item. It's been a quiet autumn for my cassette collection, I don't find much new to add, and what I do receive is generally pirate stuff. When I started collecting, I wasn't really that interested in the unofficial side of things... That said, I was glad to receive this Spanish boot of Radio-Activity!   I haven't posted any Spanish pirate cassettes before, simply because I didn't have any. Furthermore, this is my first unofficial cassette of Radio-Activity! For some reason, even the Polish pirate market seems to have given Radio-Activity the miss, Discogs has ONE Polish boot of this album listed. Compare that with other albums like The Mix or The Man Machine... As Spanish pirate cassettes go, Discogs has only one entry? Which is another Radio-Activity - ie, no Autobahn, no The Mix, nothing else in between. I suspect we're treading unchartered territories here,...

AUTOBAHN (Poland, 1996?) Unofficial Reggae, 90208 Although there has been a lot of Polish releases on this blog before, I can't remember even one Autobahn? Well, here's the first, then, and it's on the surprisingly titled "Reggae" label. Apparently based on the German 1985 edition , same front illustration at least. The cassette is clear, without any info, not even which side you're looking at. The cover is a simple 1-panel J-card, on fairly cheap-looking thin paper, and printed on one side only. In fact, the only actual connection to the official item is the "motorway sign" design on the front; they haven't even bothered to put the track list on the cover! It just says "Autobahn I-V", which surprises me, as if they had access to the illustration on the front, surely they had the tracklist too? Maybe they were sent a postcard of it. I stated above that this came out in 1996, I base this on a stamp inside the cover. However it's bar...