THE MIX (Türkiye, 1991)
EMI/ Kent Elektronik San Ve Tic, TS-2240; 09269; TCP 2519; 7966714

A rare example of Kraftwerk's cassette output in Turkey here, in fact, as far as I know this is the only Turkish cassette. (The country's name was changed officially from Turkey to Türkiye, apparently? Not sure if "Turkish" is still correct, sorry if not).

The J-card is 2-panel, with a very small backflap. This edition is one of the few which have a variant on the common sleeve design, with a slightly different cut of the front cover photo of the Ralfbot - on this, his head is all over to the left side! The logo is for some reason put at the lower edge of the front, while at the top, there is a frankly inexplicable stripe of _nearly_ the same blue background colour as the rest... 

The general repro has a slightly cheaper feel than "standard" editions, the paper too, it's neither thick nor glossy. They did give us the typeface though - even the tracklist has the "computer" type lettering, and the J-card is printed on both sides, you get the robots from the original inner sleeve on the inside. On the backflap, you also get the additional credits from the LP inner sleeve or CD booklet, and some Turkish copyright info (and a standard text about how the programme on side 1 and 2 may be of different lengths, and if so you should wind the tape). 

Cassettes are tinted clear, with the black paper labels also using the design of the front cover for band name and title. On Side 2, a small yellow sticker, possibly indicating that the seller or manufacturer paid their taxes? I suppose it could be a surprising place to put a price tag, too though, who knows. 

Also of note, this edition has such a mass of catalogue numbers! One on the backflap, one on the spine, two different on the inside of the backflap, with yet another on the labels! It would appear that one number came from the the printers, at least, "Rapak" matches the printers' credit in Discogs. Even the record labels abound; the EMI logo also has "Pathe Marconi" in small print, while label and backflap also has "Kent Elektronik". Further afield, the label has a "TSE" logo, and something called KTB. I can not pretend to have the slightest idea what these are meant to signify, hopefully they were known to the cassette-buying crowd in Türkiye in 1991.








Comments

Popular posts from this blog