Kraftwerk cassettes

HIGHRAIL (Germany, 1979) Philips, 7172 299 Today, let's go back to the realm of early works compilations! The German "Highrail", another recent acquisition. I'm glad I got this one, at long last, as it has escaped me quite narrowly on several occasions. I'm not particularly superstitious, but I was beginning to feel like I'd never get it... But here it is! Highrail came in 1979, and in the Reflections series - a sizeable reissue program originally on the Fontana label, with best-of's and compilations of scores of artists. The name "Highrail" and the locomotive on the front cover follow on from 1977's Trans-Europa Express album, of course, and I believe this came in 1979, one of the last of these compilations of pre-Autobahn material. In fact, I'm beginning to speculate if the later " Pop Lions " compilation is a kind of companion to this? Considering the track list (where only Autobahn overlaps), the (supposed) connection to the...

Release 6 - the atlantic group 1994 (USA, Promotional sampler, 1994) Atlantic, no cat.no. It's my 200th post on this blog, so I should perhaps have dug out something awesome... But I don't know, I sort of think this blog is about the joy of collecting, in general, and not just about the most fascinating items. So that said, I want to post this, another promo compilation. I find them interesting, this one is in the same vein as a couple I have posted earlier. Like those previous ones, this cassette contains short snippets of tracks from 13 new releases, with a voice-over telling us how great each release is. This time, we are being treated to nearly two minutes of Elektric Music's TV, and the surprisingly thick American accent of the record company man who has this to say about it:  "Elektric Music: Esperanto. A sonic break-through from techno pioneers Karl Bartos of Kraftwerk and Lothar Manteuffel of Rheingold. An exciting and accessible new body of work, enigineer...

EXCELLER 8 (UK, 1975) Vertigo, 7149 007 I suppose I'm a sucker for the oddities and obscurities and variants, so if there's a choice between a cassette I expect a lot of people would be familiar with, and a barely different variant, I go for what I expect to be the more obscure. Today's post is kind of the "standard edition" of this compilation, I suppose - I've posted other editions of Exceller 8, but I think it originates from the UK, and I've never posted that, so - well, here's the UK edition! Exceller 8 is perhaps the most well-known compilation of their early works? It was released in 1975, after Autobahn had surprised the record company by soaring up the singles charts and basically creating a market for more Kraftwerk product. The 7" edition released in the UK was different to the German one, whereas the US would use the German single version, so when this compilation has that UK 7" edit, it leads me to believe the whole compilatio...

The Model (Poland, 199?) Unofficial Euro Star ES 2213 Time for another Polish pirate cassette! This time, though, a compilation, one of the few that weren't "curated", so to speak, in Poland...  "The Model 1975-1978" was a compilation on the US Cleopatra label, released in 1992. It features tracks from Radio-Activity, Trans-Europe Express and The Man Machine, some of them in their original single edits, and Les Mannequins which had been issued as the b-side to its English-language counterpart Showroom Dummies on a promotional "disco" 12" single. There are several Polish editions of this, this one has all the tracks from the compilation - not in the same order, though, they have been jumbled around, I suppose it was an effort to make two programmes of equal lenght. Apart from starting the cassette with the title track, which is not unjustified for a best-of compilation with a title track, they somewhat surprisingly placed Trans-Europe Express on Si...

Elektra Entertainment June 1991 New Releases (USA, Promotional sampler, 1991) Elektra (PR-8381) It's time for another compilation today, and it's a promo! This one has much in common with the November 1986 Guide from a previous post, a style of promotional item I find it interesting on many levels. This cassette runs more or less like a promotional radio show, with short snippets of tracks from 19 releases, plus voice-over. There are entries from Natalie Cole, Queen and Barry Adamson here, among others (jazz saxofonist David Sanborn, famous producer Desmond Child etc). The tracks are often mixed without pauses, so you go from a bit of Gipsy Kings to the familiar intro to The Robots... The voice over sounds kinda robotic, too, and the stuff he says is the kind of thing you'd expect from modern AI today:  "Kraftwerk returns with their new release, The Mix. The band has gone through its entire catalog, selecting songs that would best benefit from and demonstrate their ne...

ELEKTRO KINETIK (UK, 1981) Vertigo 7143 066 From Polish pirate compilation to something at least reasonably official, although I'm willing to bet it was released against the wishes of the artists in question! I rather like this one, though. As stated before, a lot of compilations of Kraftwerk's early works were put out after Autobahn was a hit, and for years ahead. I expect this was put out to capitalise on - well, take your pick: It was released in 1981, before The Model reached #1 in the UK charts, but Pocket Calculator was a modest hit, Computer Love did ok that summer (in fact, both went to #39, just inside the Top Forty) and the Computer World album started it's long chart run at #15, and add to this their upcoming UK tour, I suppose that's enough general interest in the band that Vertigo thought a compilation of back catalogue would be worth a try... again . The J-card is pretty nice, all things considered: A simple design, with the band name at the top, the album...

HITS (Poland, 198?) Unofficial HiTs H135 I have not forgotten the Polish pirate cassettes! Feels like it was a while ago since I featured one here, but there are plenty of them, and as I've said before, they're often interesting, even if "interesting" means "ridiculous" at times...  I was tempted to list this as "Kraftwerk", or even "Untitled", as "HiTs" is apparently the name of the label. However, that's what it says on the front, so I'll go with that - I suppose the confusion is a selling point? I mean, you look at the front, it says "Kraftwerk" and "Hits", you will assume it's a best-of compilation, right? Anyway, this is a compilation of tracks from different sources, and opens with the most known song from the 80s - "The Model", which was their biggest song in the charts in the UK, and which always received a rapturous response from live audiences on the 1981 tour.  The front cover...

THIS IS THE WORLD OF SYNTHESIZER (Germany, 1989) Vivo, imt 700.072/ 8006 Sometimes, the value of an item goes beyond its selling price! I have a perfect example of this phenomenon here today, a cassette that looks like something mildly ridiculous, which has its worth after all... The cassette "This is The World of Synthesizer" looks like one of those archetypical 80s gas station releases: A compilation of cover versions by "unoriginal artists", one of those things that sort of had their heyday in the 70s and 80s, a quick buck for the producers, going for an impulse buy from someone who just wants something new to listen to in the car... Those cover version compilations would generally have country and western music, or chart pop like ABBA, but the novelty of the synthesizer invited lots of unknown musicians to record tapes like this, typically featuring film music, Vangelis, Jarre and the like... But in fact, this particular item is a re-issue of an album originally...

Kraftwerk (Poland, 199?) Unofficial TomZo 0090 The Polish takeover continues with another pirate cassette, today it's a compilation! Well, kind of.   I've touched before on the anything-goes attitude, typical in Poland in the late 80s and through the 90s. Today's item is a brilliant case in point; nearly a two-for-one, it has most of the The Man-Machine album on side one, and most of the Computerwelt album on side two. Yes, one in English, the other in German! 'Neon Lights' is omitted from the first, while Computerwelt is presented here without 'Taschenrechner' _and_ 'Nummern'. All three are key tracks, although I suppose nearly every track is key on these two releases... It's especially baffling that 'Nummern' is not included, since it's sort of a medley with the next song, 'Computerwelt 2', so this one starts rather abruptly after the ending of it's counterpart. In fact, the cassette is a c60, so it wasn't even neces...

KRAFTWERK 2 (Italy, 1977) Fontana, 7299 776 Following on from yesterdays post , of course I couldn't post "1" and not follow up with "2"! The two make up a set of the first four Kraftwerk albums, in edited versions - On the first, tracks from Kraftwerk's debut are coupled with songs off the third album, while on this, we get the tracks off the second album and their break-through, Autobahn. The A-side has the main portion of early highlight "Kling Klang" - pretty much the first 9 minutes. Then, we get some of Kraftwerk's most pointless work, "Atem" - three minutes of what sounds like heavy breathing - and Strom, which opens with a minute of someone's first rehearsal on electric guitar. In both cases, the songs are unaltered and not edited. The next track, Spule 4, is an ambient bass guitar jam, where it has been decided that around 90 seconds will suffice. I don't disagree. Wellenlänge is also cut down to under two minutes, an...

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, ...