Kraftwerk cassettes

RADIO-ACTIVITY (Brazil, 1975?) Capitol 31C 264-82087 Back to South America again, here's a Brazilian edition of Radio-Activity. In fact, Discogs has this down as a 1985 reissue, but I don't know if it came out on cassette originally, or if this is the first and only edition from Brazil. The cover design is very simple - the LP cover as facsimile with the song titles underneath. Unlike the first US cassette (which has yet to be featured on my blog - sorry!), the Brazilian tracklist divides the cassette sides, so you don't get "The Voice Of Energy" right after "News"... Also, while some editions had amended the track list, you get the original twelve tracks here. The J-card is a 1-panel effort, printed on both sides. The cassette itself is grey with black print on blue labels. As mentioned before, Brazil were keen to use the Side 2 label as advertising space to mention all the sub-labels under the Capitol umbrella (I say Capitol, because this cassette ca

Computer World (Canada, 1981) Warner Brothers XW5-3549 Sometimes, the more basic editions have a charm the more lavish ones dont - case in point, this Canadian edition of Computer World. The Canadian edition comes in a very simple 1-panel J-card, only printed on one side. Furthermore, the design is a standardised 'LP-to-cassette' style, where they simply put the album cover as a facsimile on the front, with the lower bit of the panel listing the band name and album title, in neutral lettering that looks the same on every cassette issued at the time (ie so no "computer printout" letters like the US edition went for). Plenty of space for a large Warner Bros. logo, and there we are.  The track list is printed on the back flap, along with the record company's postal address and a warning that the A-side is shorter than the B-side; I'm sure this was a real pain for some record executives in the 80s, where cassettes would sell by the truckload... What to do when the

AUTOBAHN (USA, 1977) Mercury MCR4-1-3704 Here's one of many US editions of Autobahn, the 1977 Mercury edition. The USA did of course have a lot of variations of Autobahn, on LP or cassette. The album was a big hit there, and kept selling, so when stock was getting low and orders kept coming in, I suppose they'd make more? Why they changed the label I don't know though - the first edition was released on Vertigo, and they're both distributed by Polygram anyway so where one label ends and another begins is anyone's guess.  This reissue is apparently based on the Vertigo edition, sharing the cover design and a surprising edit in the tracklist: As the two sides were of different length, the US market deemed it necessary to cut a minute off the title track and relegate it to the b-side! Of course, it saves the listener the trouble of fast-forwarding the end of side two, but at the cost of a prominent break in the ending of the title track... I can't say I like that p

ORGANISATION: TONE FLOAT (Poland? Unofficial) No label, no cat.no. Kraftwerk's history, like most famous bands' history, begins with another band. Or at least, another band name - Organisation. "Tone Float" is the album Florian Schneider-Esleben, Ralf Hütter, Butch Hauf, Alfred Mönicks and Basil Hammoudi released as Organisation. It was co-produced by the band and Conrad Plank, and released on the UK label RCA in June 1970. And from here, it gets complicated. The music the first years was rather free-form and improvised. Ralf and Florian famously met at a high school course in improvisation, and the two were at the core, organising shows, auditioning other members, Band members came and went, or stopped by occasionally, and the band name had variations, too.   Apparently, the band name was shortened down from something along the lines of "Organisation for the Realisation of Shared Music Concepts". The name was not used for performance work after 25. April,

EXCELLER 8 (Australia, 1975?) Vertigo, 7149 007 It's time for another compilation cassette, I suppose - here's Exceller 8, in an Australian edition! Exceller 8 has been featured before, from France , but I wasn't even aware that this one existed until recently. It may be quite obscure, of course, but on the other hand - Kraftwerk cassettes are generally un-researched, little information is to be found outside Discogs, Ebay and a couple of Kraftwerk collector/fan sites - so the fact that it is not listed online doesn't automatically make it a monster rarity. What I do know though is that it came out in 1975, on the back of Autobahn. It has the same Price Code as other Vertigo cassettes - the Australian editions of Autobahn and Ralf & Florian ( both of which have been listed here before ). The cat.no.s are adjacent, too - This is 7149 007, after Autobahn came as 7149 005 and R&F as 7149 006. The J-card is a lovely 2-panel, printed on one side of the thick card