Kraftwerk cassettes

KARL BARTOS: Communication (2003, Japan) Sony, no cat.no Ending the year with something different, here's a relatively new one - from 2003. Karl Bartos' solo album "Communication" was of course not released on cassette, because cassettes were not needed in most countries where it was released, but they made a promo cassette for Japan, and - well, this is that! The cassette has a November 2003 release date; of course, this promo could be made a few weeks before, but I think Kraftwerk's Tour De France Soundtracks came in August. Musically, it nods back to the sound of Elektric Music's "Esperanto" album, pretty much in the same vein as the music he wrote for Kraftwerk, and some familiar synth sounds, percussion and computer voices. The promo cassette includes the two remixes that were also bonus tracks on the Japanese CD edition (in fact, European CD-rom editions of the album had a download link to get the remixes, but they were not on the physical CD)....

KOMETENMELODIE 2 (France, 1976)  Philips 7299 415 Another one in my "variants" series today, here's another copy of the "Kometenmelodie 2" compilation from the "Collection A Tout" series! As we have seen before, many cassettes would be released in different editions - it's kind of the point of this blog, really! I've posted reissues and original issues, I've touched on " Printed in Germany " and " Printed in EEC ", I've had three different Portuguese editions of The Man Machine... But sometimes, the differences are so small that it's taken years to even notice them! In this case, the printer's credit is moved. Today's cassette has the "Imp. C.I.D.I.S. Louviers" on the inside of the back flap, while on the one I posted here before - 4 years back, in fact - has the credit on the outer flap. Cassette shells, labels and the rest of the design of the J-card are exactly the same. Wait, no, there...

AUTOBAHN (1985, South Korea) Unoffical Shilla Records – SCM-1023 Yay, a new country added today: I haven't had anything from South Korea before. I have more questions than answers about this one, but it's a nice item anyway so let's get to it! South Korea has had both an "official" record industry and an unofficial one. Both have been putting out Kraftwerk cassettes to their markets (not sure how different the markets have been? I mean, if they were sold in the same shops, or if the shops concentrated on official product and the pirate material was only sold at market stalls or what have you). This was released by a label called Shilla, which Discogs informs me is a pirate label. Interestingly though, the statement "Approved by the Government" is printed on the card - whether this indicates that Shilla pay their taxes, or what else it could mean, is again anyone's guess, but an unofficial release would obviously not be "approved" by, say, a...