TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS (Argentina, 1977)
Capitol 118019


Argentina put out a range of absolutely fascinating cassettes by Kraftwerk in the 70s and 80s, and it is still an under-researched area, meaning that variants still pop up that haven't been documented online before, and fans may learn of new items all the time!


For Trans-Europe Express, Argentina opted for a variant of the colour image sleeve - The original German cover had Maurice Seymour's black and white group photo on the front and J. Stara's montage on the back, but many countries used the J. Stara image on the front cover, and in full colour. The Argentinian vinyl replicates the J. Stara sleeve from the US, UK and some other territories, but the cassette uses a cropped version of the image, with a black frame on white background.


Many different editions exist of this cassette, some with paper labels, some with on-body print, and the J-card comes with several different catalogue numbers. Apparently, the first cassette in Argentina had the cat.no 18019, mine has 118019, and there is one with the cat.no 138019, begging the question - "is there one with 128019 as well?" I dunno, maybe.


Argentinian releases generally come with very simple 1-panel J-cards, often with the tracklist printed in "landscape orientation", not to mention every track title translated to Spanish! This particular cassette also benefits from some strange differences in the typeface on the cat.no on the front of the J-card, a helpful hint that the word "Kraftwerk" is to be understood as the band name, and a surprise printer's error on Ralf Hütter's surname, which is spelt "Hutler" the last time it's used. A strange line above the notes on the inside of the J-card adds to the cut-n-paste look of the cover, which already had a slight DIY feel. The cream white cassette has paper labels, which I assume were white before the glue caused them to fade into a dark off-white, light brown colour. The small window in the middle where you can see the spool of tape is very narrow, and adds to the feeling that Argentina was very far away from Germany in 1977...








 

 



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