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).


The cassette is white with glossy white paper labels. The inlay J-card is on thick paper, more like something you'd print up on a printer than order from a print shop if you know what I mean. Makes it feel like they didn't do a lot of these, but I don't really know. The graphics are nice, too: Each song is represented by a small icon or sign, and where the CD has four of these on the front, you get a full set of 16 different signs. 





 

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