Kraftwerk cassettes

MUSIQUE NON STOP (New Zealand, 1986) EMI TC-GOOD 148 This. THIS! I've had a few rarities on this blog before, and of course I'm still learning about Krafwerk cassettes, ie. what exists and how to find the items. But this, I only even heard about it a couple of years ago, I was pretty stunned to find out it existed, and it was one of my absolute top wants - until now. When I started collecting Kraftwerk cassettes, the cassette singles appealed to me more than albums. I was lucky to get the Pocket Calculator cassette early on, certainly due to its packaging (I'll have to post that one later!). In 1991, when Kraftwerk were back after four years of total silence, I got the singles on all formats, including cassette. And it occurred to me that it was strange that none of the 1986 singles was released on single, but knowing what I now know, isn't it actually even stranger that New Zealand did release it on cassette? As the only country in the world? EMI New Zealand made a nu...

ELECTRIC CAFE (UK, 1986) EMI TCEMD1001 Another visit to the Electric Cafe today. And while I'm still searching for the elusive imports from faraway places, today's post is a fairly commonplace item - from the UK. I keep stating that the UK is one of the key markets for Kraftwerk. I suppose part of that is simply because since the 1960's, the UK charts have been one of the most important in the world for pop and rock music. Apart from that, Kraftwerk have had a very strong fan base in the UK, it's been one of their most frequently toured territories, and their #1 hit with "The Model" in 1982 spurred a multitude of international releases of that single. In the 1990s, the "Aktivität" fanzine was a rare source of news and information, and the UK was also host to some international fan conventions.  Electric Cafe was released at a time when cassettes were a real alternative to vinyl or CD, so it comes in a full 4-panel J-card, printed on both sides. We g...

TRANS-EUROPE EXPRESS (Italy, 1977) Capitol 3C 264 85110 Italy is an interesting country as Kraftwerk cassettes go, with many releases and variants. Today's post is a kind of follow-up on an earlier post ; two cassettes that look quite similar, but have different catalogue numbers! So, as mentioned in that previous post, this album has been released across many territories with different cat.no's - Sometimes, variants ending with 82306, or 85110. 3C is the country code for Italy (France is 2C, Spain 10C, Brazil 31C etc), and at least the 2 in 264 indicates the cassette format (the corresponding LP has 3C 064 85110, so with just the one cipher to distinguish, it stands to reason that's what the cipher means). Apart from the catalogue numbers, there is not a lot of difference between this and the previous post. They each come with a 2-panel J-card, printed on one side only. Both cassettes have a blue shell. The cover design is the same, based on the black and white LP sleeve ...

THE MIX (Germany? 1991?) No label, no cat.no, barcode 0 035627 48102 Back into uncharted waters, for another unofficial edition of The Mix! I have of course had several pirate cassettes before, mostly from Poland or United Arab Emirates , but this one claims to be from "West Germany". I got it from a seller in Hungary, and of course, with a low-key unofficial item like this, it's not easy to tell, but the cassette plays the German-language version of the songs, and the labels have the legal text in German, so perhaps it is from Germany after all. It just seems like the backflap is copied from some other release, since Germany was no longer divided into East and West by 1990, and the barcode matches a totally unrelated release... Hard to tell. -I would expect the "Fall of the Berlin Wall" to have been a bit of a thing in Germany at the time, though, would a German be so careless as to still use "West Germany" after that? OK, never mind. Where-ever it ca...

THE MAN·MACHINE (Poland, 198?) Starling S114 Time for boots, here's another unofficial edition from Poland - this time, it's The Man-Machine! To my shock, I see I haven't had any Starling cassettes yet. I did touch upon the pirate cassette scene in Poland before though, and Starling was one of the more prolific companies there, with hundreds of releases to choose from... I think they were active from the mid-80s sometime and well into this millenium, and there were several Kraftwerk cassettes and variants as well. Today's edition is one of the many editions of The Man-Machine. Or I should say Die Mensch-Maschine, as the song titles on the cover are in German, although the title is in English... It plays the German version though, many Polish Kraftwerk cassettes have German-language contents . Well, they are neighbours, sharing 500 km of border. What drew me to this cassette is of course the cover. The 2-panel J-card has a unique design, a weird take on the El Lissitzky...