Kraftwerk cassettes

LA DÜSSELDORF: INDIVIDUELLOS (Germany, 1980) Teldec, 4.24524 CR Branching out a little further in 2026, here's another cassette that isn't strictly speaking by Kraftwerk. We've had some "Related artists" before though, so it feels logical to follow that trail a bit further. Klaus Dinger played drums on Side 2 of the first Kraftwerk LP, and stayed on as a member for nearly a year. Florian Schneider, Michael Rother and Dinger started work on the second Kraftwerk album, but sessions were aborted, Hütter returned and Rother and Dinger formed Neu!. The duo put out three brilliant albums, before personal relations had soured beyond repair and the band was no more. Rother went solo, and Dinger started La Düsseldorf, recruiting his brother Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe. From 1976-1980, three albums were released, before relations again were so strained that they could not work together any more. One gets the impression that Klaus Dinger may have been difficult to work with...

EXPO 2000 (Scandinavia, 2025) unofficial - home-made No label, no cat.no In the quiet week before the New Year - just a bit of fun for once! This blog explores the art of collecting through the medium of cassettes. I've touched frequently upon what I collect, and what I do not collect, although this has also changed as the collection develops (or grows, as I don't think I've ever taken stuff out of the collection once I've made room for it!). I started out focusing on official releases, but soon realised that not all countries even could get the cassettes officially, and that the line between official and un-official can be more blurred in some countries than it is in my homeland... And here's the first cassette which I define as "home-made", as in, not duplicated and with a cover not printed professionally, and with no connection to the record industry - _or_ with a view to selling the item. It was given me for Christmas. My brother thought it a shame tha...

KARL BARTOS: Communication (2003, Japan) Sony, no cat.no Ending the year with something different, here's a relatively new one - from 2003. Karl Bartos' solo album "Communication" was of course not released on cassette, because cassettes were not needed in most countries where it was released, but they made a promo cassette for Japan, and - well, this is that! The cassette has a November 2003 release date; of course, this promo could be made a few weeks before, but I think Kraftwerk's Tour De France Soundtracks came in August. Musically, it nods back to the sound of Elektric Music's "Esperanto" album, pretty much in the same vein as the music he wrote for Kraftwerk, and some familiar synth sounds, percussion and computer voices. The promo cassette includes the two remixes that were also bonus tracks on the Japanese CD edition (in fact, European CD-rom editions of the album had a download link to get the remixes, but they were not on the physical CD)....

KOMETENMELODIE 2 (France, 1976)  Philips 7299 415 Another one in my "variants" series today, here's another copy of the "Kometenmelodie 2" compilation from the "Collection A Tout" series! As we have seen before, many cassettes would be released in different editions - it's kind of the point of this blog, really! I've posted reissues and original issues, I've touched on " Printed in Germany " and " Printed in EEC ", I've had three different Portuguese editions of The Man Machine... But sometimes, the differences are so small that it's taken years to even notice them! In this case, the printer's credit is moved. Today's cassette has the "Imp. C.I.D.I.S. Louviers" on the inside of the back flap, while on the one I posted here before - 4 years back, in fact - has the credit on the outer flap. Cassette shells, labels and the rest of the design of the J-card are exactly the same. Wait, no, there...

AUTOBAHN (1985, South Korea) Unoffical Shilla Records – SCM-1023 Yay, a new country added today: I haven't had anything from South Korea before. I have more questions than answers about this one, but it's a nice item anyway so let's get to it! South Korea has had both an "official" record industry and an unofficial one. Both have been putting out Kraftwerk cassettes to their markets (not sure how different the markets have been? I mean, if they were sold in the same shops, or if the shops concentrated on official product and the pirate material was only sold at market stalls or what have you). This was released by a label called Shilla, which Discogs informs me is a pirate label. Interestingly though, the statement "Approved by the Government" is printed on the card - whether this indicates that Shilla pay their taxes, or what else it could mean, is again anyone's guess, but an unofficial release would obviously not be "approved" by, say, a...

AFRIKA BAMBAATAA & THE SOULSONIC FORCE: DON'T STOP... PLANET ROCK (THE REMIX EP) (1992, Canada) Tommy Boy, TBC 1052 It gets more difficult to know where to draw the line. I started out getting some of Kraftwerk's albums on cassette, then I thought, I'd like to get the German versions of each album , then I noticed some of the European ones had different covers to both UK and Germany, all of a sudden I collect worldwide releases ... And I find promotional compilations with more advert -type content , I find their single edits in film soundtracks, I get a couple versions of Elektric Music's album , and, well , here we are. To old school hip hop afficionados, the artist and the song need no introduction. Planet Rock, originally released in 1982, is one of the cornerstones of rap. It also featured enough Kraftwerk samples for Kraftwerk to take legal action - or possibly it was settled out of court; at least, Kraftwerk got paid. The music features large portion...