Mini CDs #12: V/Vm’s Help Aphex Twin & Whine and Missing Toe

April 6, 2021April 6, 2021

With a mix of the last two mini CD entries we have James Kirby aka V/Vm‘s (piss)take on Aphex Twin and a Xmas compilation featuring the Boards of Canada alias Hell Interface. In much the same way that V/Vm has lovingly parodied previous artists like Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Chris De Burgh, Posh Spice and others, Richard D James gets the treatment with no fucks given across two mini CDs mimicking the red and blue of the old Universal Indicator series on RePhleX. You get a sense that Kirby was maybe taking the piss but as a fan as some of the tracks are quite decent. These are first pressings, later ones came in brown, green or reversed red/blue for each volume, some of the contents are also on a vinyl LP titled ‘Help Aphex Twin 3.0’ with some new material and ‘Help Aphex Twin 4.0’ is a regular CD version with even more new tracks. The Xmas compilation features a disturbingly pitch-bent take on ‘Silent Night’ from Hell Interface as well as Christmas song mash ups, animal noises and general twisting of well known songs into new forms. There’s a 7″ of this as well.

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Mini CDs #11: Gavin Bryars – Raising the Titanic (Aphex Twin remix)

March 31, 2021

This miniature beauty was included in a 1995 Japanese edition of Bryars‘ ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’, also available on regular CD and promo 12″ in the US as well as turning up on the ’26 Mixes For Cash’ compilation. There are various versions of the mix either known as ‘Big Drum mix’, ‘edit’ or just ‘mix’ and all sound identical to my ears apart from the length. This CD only contains one version despite the title and I appear to have lost or sold the original edition of the album that it came with.

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Mini CDs #10: Boards of Canada – Sometime In The Future

March 24, 2021March 25, 2021

Back in the 00’s, when I had a bit more time on my hands, I would make physical editions of some of my more conceptual mixes for Solid Steel. I wanted to do something really special for the release of ‘Geogaddi’, BoC’s second album, being a big fan of the group. There was a lot of secrecy surrounding this record and I was given a copy of the album by Warp just before the release. I rushed through it in a weekend to make the deadline for the radio show so that this could be transmitted on Solid Steel the week it was released. As a thank you I made 10 copies in a fold out hexagon sleeve (based on the Andromeda Strain soundtrack packaging), each with a different sticker inside and a 3″ CD containing the mix. I sent four to Mike & Marcus, two to Warp and kept four for myself.

DJ Food · Sometime In The Future – a ‘Geogaddi’ mix

Posted in Mini CDs. | 4 Comments | Tags: Boards of Canada

Mini CDs #9: Tear For Fears – Woman in Chains

March 16, 2021March 16, 2021

As with last week’s post, I don’t own this either so have had to collect images of it from the web but it’s another great example of the kind of things major label budgets could come up with when a big chart band were involved. Although not as hardy as last week’s Tears For Fears single, this version of ‘Woman in Chains’ is more complex with a four panel fold out that holds the 3″ CD inside. As you can see, the design is quite flimsy and the prongs of the sun’s rays are a little battered. I’d imagine finding one of these in mint condition is near impossible after 30+ years, how would you safely stack that in your collection?. Design was by Stylorouge.

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Mini CDs #8: Tear For Fears – Sowing The Seeds of Love

March 8, 2021

I have to confess, I don’t own this release and have pinched photos from the web but it’s a classic case of successful 80s pop band with mega hyped comeback single (an excellent one too) being squeezed into a format of the day to brilliant effect. ‘Sowing The Seeds of Love’ saw Tears For Fears making a long overdue return with a huge nod to The Beatles and late 60s flower power and what better vessel to stow a 3″ CD in than a sunflower? No doubt causing all manner of headaches for the OCD fan as they place it on the shelf with their other TFF releases, this is a beautiful example of lateral thinking design, the only let down being the lacklustre on body disc design once inside the thing.

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Mini CDs #7: XTC – Oranges & Lemons

March 3, 2021

This beautifully unique object is possibly the first example of a full album presented across three mini CDs, housed in a fragile cigarette-sized box. Sporting a Yellow Submarine-esque flip up cover, the discs are stacked as you see them below in tiered slots but the box is easy to crush or tear – as you can see here. I always found it odd that they did this album after two Dukes of the Stratosphear LPs but maybe they had dipped their toes in the psychedelic waters enough to put it out as XTC by this time.

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Mini CDs #6: The The – Gravitate To Me

February 23, 2021

The post-‘Mind Bomb’ single, again released on multiple formats including 7″, cassette, two 12″s and another 12″ box set with photos, postcard and stencil, it also came as a 3″ CD in downscaled fold out card sleeve with pocket for the disc. It’s horribly fragile, isn’t easy to keep in good shape 30 years on and hasn’t any exclusive material. I’m not sure whether the German stamp on the inner cover is the previous owner’s or a shop address.

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Mini CDs #5: The The – The Beaten Generation

February 16, 2021

The The‘s eagerly-awaited single, preceding their ‘Mind Bomb’ album and including the first fixed line up of a band Matt Johnson had assembled to tour with, including a certain Johnny Marr. Released on multiple formats including 7″, two 12″s and a 12″ box set with postcards and badge, it also came as a 3″ CD that downscaled the box set with fold out insert. It’s a cute little item but doesn’t have any material not on other formats and is hard to find in good shape.

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Mini CDs #4: Yazz & The Plastic Population – The Only Way Is Up

February 9, 2021

This US CD single is unfortunately missing part of its cover, it was part of a long box as can be seen in the bottom photo. The extended UK mix and the Bam Bam remix feature from both of the UK 12″s but the most interesting thing about this release is the Acid Dub mix by Justin Strauss and Murray Elias which was exclusive to the US releases and not featured on any European editions. It all starts getting interesting around the 3.50 mark

Posted in Design, Mini CDs, Music. | 1 Comment | Tags: Coldcut, Yazz

Mini CDs #3: Coldcut – Stop That Crazy Thing

February 2, 2021

An early example of packaging that attempted to forma the 3″ CD into a 5″ size, sadly destined to fail but a beautiful attempt nevertheless. The mini gatefold sleeve housed the CD and then one flap was supposed to be inserted into the slit just below the COLDCUT logo and this would secure the cover to the plastic border. A nice idea but in practice the weak cardboard sleeve would weaken and tear at the corners, weighed down by the rest of the cover.

The plastic would bend at the corners too and it must have been a pain to assemble. This release has the exclusive ‘vocal dub mix’ of the title track and lovely design by Mark Porter using the illustration by Michael Bartalos who later also made the original Ninja Tune logo in a similar style. It was also released as a mini CD in Germany but in a mini CD case with inlay and the same tracklist as the 12″.

Posted in Design, Mini CDs, Music. | 1 Comment | Tags: Coldcut

Mini CDs #2: Todd Terry productions

January 26, 2021

A couple of Todd Terry productions licensed to Champion in the UK with unique design once again by Trevor Jackson at Bite It!. Unlike the Eric B & Rakim single last week, the Swan Lake release is in a 5″ CD sleeve with an adaptor ring to play the CD in a regular machine and the cover has just been shrunk wholesale from the vinyl artwork. A sticker has been applied over the original catalogue number with a new CD prefix and the text is so tiny it’s virtually indistinguishable. The CD repeats the regular 12″ tracklist, there’s also a German mini CD single but the artwork has been replaced with something else.

The Black Riot ‘A Day in The Life’ CD is in a mini 3″ sleeve and I’m yet to find one of these so have nicked images from Discogs. The chances of ever finding one of these in the racks is remote and it repeats the standard 12″ tracklist as well. Look at that tiny text though, you can see why they didn’t catch on, these were pocket-sized, although we can now carry our whole music collections around in our pockets if we choose. Certain CD players had a 3″ dip in the tray that would accommodate the smaller discs and with some modern day players you just fit the disc over a centre spindle.

Posted in Design, Mini CDs, Music. | No Comments | Tags: Black Riot, Swan Lake, Todd Terry, Trevor Jackson

Mini CDs #1: Eric B & Rakim – Microphone Fiend

January 19, 2021

I’ve been meaning to catalogue and show my collection of 3″ mini CDs – much the same as I did for my flexi discs – for about 5 years now but haven’t got round to it. With the dawning of a new year and the impetus to start something new I thought it was about time, seeing as the CD revival still hasn’t swung round yet, although with the current price and manufacturing times of vinyl it can’t be far off.

But first, a little bit of history:
3″ or 80cm mini CDs first appeared around the end of the 80s and, for a short while at least, were a companion release to the 7″ and 12″ singles of the pop and dance music of the era before being replaced by full sized CD singles. The main problem with the discs was their size, they were so small that they were difficult to play unless you had the right CD tray or an adaptor and they disappeared in the racks. A few attempts were made to come up with some sort of standardized cover packaging including transparent plastic moulded holders the same size as regular CDs which would encapsulate the card sleeve and disc but these never caught on. In the US they were known as CD3 and the regular albums as CD5 and some came in the long boxes of the day over there which were eventually phased out due to the excessive waste of the card packaging.

The discs could hold 24 minutes of music and would generally contain three or four tracks like a 12″, sometimes with exclusive mixes or edits. With designers already complaining about the miniaturisation of the album sleeve to normal 5″ CD size, these posed an even smaller canvas to work with but some found a way to make beautiful packaging to house them. By the early 90s they were superceded by their larger cousins and then started being used by more experimental and enterprising labels, keen to exploit their unique format for tour EPs and cheap extras inside books or magazines. The Japanese especially loved 3″ CDs and there are many different examples throughout the 90s and 00s of them being used to great effect as promos.

First off I’m going to concentrate on the late 80s, mainly in the UK and then move roughly through the 90s and up to the present day with selections from my collection. This is by no means a definitive list, just examples of mini CDs I’ve picked up over the decades for their content, packaging or design.

Eric B & Rakim‘s ‘Microhone Fiend’ has a miniature version of the UK 7″ for the cover, designed by Trevor Jackson at Bite It!, but has to dispense with the regular back cover for a track listing as the text would have been way too small to read otherwise. The single also includes the 7″ edit of ‘Follow The Leader’ which isn’t on any other version.

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