RALF & FLORIAN (1975, USA)
Vertigo VCR4-2006

 

When Kraftwerk suddenly had an international hit record, the demand presented itself for more product. With the band committed to touring duties, the choice stood between waiting for new music, or re-releasing some of their previous records. I've previously touched on the mass/ mess of compilations of early tracks that followed in Autobahn's wake, but I haven't featured any of their first three albums on the blog before, so here's an American 1975 edition of Ralf & Florian.

Arguably the best of the early albums, and the most natural pre-decessor to Autobahn, Ralf & Florian was recorded in the summer of 1973 at a number of different studios, with Conny Plank as enigineer; after he was credited with co-production of the two first albums, one wonders what happened to his role on this one. Indeed, many people seem to think that he had more of a procution role even on Autobahn. Not for me to decide, but sometimes, the roles in a studio session are fluctuous; it's a creative process and people contribute however they can. I suppose that after two records with Plank co-producing, Kraftwerk could theoretically have approached him with an offer to enigineer their next album, and when he accepted that, it was never a question of how he would be credited? And of course, already from their humble beginnings as recording artists, Kraftwerk were very proud of their autonomy. You don't name your album after yourselves and then let anyone think it's not 100% your own product.

Be that as it may, Ralf & Florian is as fine an album as you could hope to derive from a year such as 1973. Chucking out the freeform "we haven't got the material" attitude of the second part of Kraftwerk 2, this is a collection of "songs" (albeit instrumental), not "jams" or "sound experiments", and all the better for it. They still improvise, or experiment, but it seems to be within a stricter melodic structure - like the good parts of the two first, but not like the rest... it's easy to imagine foreign record company mogules searching for more Kraftwerk product, giving the two first a miss but deciding that this one could interest fans of Autobahn.

There is a number of reasons why I love this US cassette of Ralf & Florian: The front cover is more faithful to the original German LP than the German cassette, keeping the gothic typeface of the title, and blowing the traffic cone logo out of proportion. A little messy perhaps, but it still looks good. I find it fascinating that in 1975, at a time when cassettes were not used for EP releases, they still have to point out on the front that this is "A complete album"; and the standard gag that the stereo cassette is also playable in mono cassette decks must have been vitally important at that time since it is on every release; here it is also on the front cover. Further afield, I find it very amusing that there's a list of 10 "Other Pop Tapes", which simply would not classify as "Pop" just a few years later; Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Ohio Players, Ray Manzarek, Uriah Heep... In 2022, this does not read as a "Like this? Try these!" type of list to me! It feels like the record label has issued 11 cassettes so far, the one you're holding in your hand and the ten listed here. And I love the sticker: Apparently a common feature of US mid-70s cassettes, there is a sticker with the band name, album title and cat.no on top of the shell, both a practical feature, and of course a collectable indication of an original cassette shell...

The cassette has yellow paper labels and comes in a 2-panel J-card. The track list is only printed on the back flap, and is a bit of a mess as they have both decided to subtitle the songs with translations (which makes for some longish titles) and to actually cut Tanzmusik in two to save on tape, so it has to be mentioned twice.

The J-card has print on both sides, but on the inside is just the warranty that I suppose was on every Vertigo release at the time. Labels are sort of lemon yellow. If you decide next week that you want to own Ralf & Florian on cassette, most likely the US version is the first one you'll be able to find.