Kraftwerk cassettes

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...

  ELEKTRIC MUSIC: ESPERANTO (1994, Sweden/ Scandinavia) Promo, no cat.no (EastWest/ no label?) A surprising oddity here: A "title sleeve" promo cassette of Esperanto.    Not much information to go by here, I had never even heard that this should exist before stumbling upon it in an online auction. It came, supposedly, from the collection of a record company executive in Norway... Well, I remember seeing promo CDs in the second hand shops there at the time, so I know Esperanto was promoted there, and Elektric Music were touring in Sweden and Denmark in 1994, so I guess it's possible that cassettes like this one were sent out to whip up some interest for an Oslo gig?   The item consists of a 1-panel inlay, on red paper, and a cassette labeled with glossy stickers on both sides. In fact, the same sticker on either side - it doesn't say which side is A or B! The J-card is printed on 80g/m2 paper, I think - standard copy paper, but red in colour. Whether the red paper was...

  ELEKTRIC MUSIC: ESPERANTO (1994, Poland) Maraton, 92834 (Unofficial release) I just realised, I haven't had any related or "solo" projects on the blog so far! Kraftwerk's core members Ralf & Florian didn't really participate much in other projects besides Kraftwerk, but several band members came and went, especially in the early years. A surprising amount of releases feature musicians who at some point were members of Kraftwerk, the most famous being Neu! I suppose, but Elektric Music must be a close second! Karl Bartos left Kraftwerk in 1990 or 1991, and commenced work on his next project right away. He was joined by his old friend Lothar Manteuffel of NDW group Rheingold, and also Emil Schult for artwork and lyrics. Initial press photos also showed Wolfgang Flur, but according to Flur (in a 2021 Facebook comment - welcome to the future!), they hadn't actually asked him to be a member of the group, nor was he at that point interested in joining.  Elektr...