KRAFTWERK 1 (Italy, 1977)
Fontana, 7299 775


Most of the time, the casettes available on the second hand market are in pretty good condition. Occasionally, some optimistic dealer will try to get sold an item without cover, often listing the item at a higher price than the complete item normally sells for, but rarely have I seen a more battered copy of any cassette in my posession than todays item! It's pretty rare though so until I find a NM version I'm quite happy to own this!


So here's an Italian cassette called "Kraftwerk 1". We've had a couple of compilations of early works before, and as I've said, there were a good range of different ones issued in various places in the wake of Kraftwerk's international successes (Autobahn, Radio-Activity was a hit in France, and the 1981 UK tour generated some interest and one more comp...). These compilations have been both an interesting addition to a completist's collection, for their track selection, sequence and design, but also a nice way to get a sample of Kraftwerk's early output - and none more so than this album and it's counterpart - "Kraftwerk 2" which I will post soon -  because although most tracks are edited, they are all featured on these compilations!


For whatever reason, in 1977, Fontana in Italy put out two compilations with the tracks from the four first albums. Each original LP takes up one side of these LPs, and this is done by editing the original LPs down to nearly half the length, by taking out sections of the songs. In the case at hand, the LPs are subtitled "Excerpts from Kraftwerk 1 + Ralf & Florian", but the cassette cover didn't have room for this information, I suppose... -On the A-side, we get the four tracks off the debut LP, same running order as on that LP, and all edited down. Side B features the tracks of Ralf & Florian, again in sequence, but some of the songs are cut down a lot - Kristallo, one of my favourites, gets only a minute and a half of the coda, but all of "Elektrisches Roulette", "Tongebirge" and even "Heimatklänge" are featured in full! Tanzmusik is a weird edit, where the first bars of intro are followed by roughly the second half of the track, while Ananas Symphonie has another surprising selection of "portions" from different places in the original track.


The J-card is 2-panel, printed on both sides. The front has an interesting design, with features from both albums featured - the traffic cone from the debut, and the circuit board that adorns the LP cover of the UK pressing of R+F. The inside of the card is merely another list of "other releases" from the label. Cassettes are light grey with bright orange labels. And as mentioned, mine has some bad staining. In fact, it was tempting to try and wash it in Photoshop or through AI, but... Well, my copy looks like this!







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