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From estusflaskshart on Reddit who got the idea from umquhile, who got the video from Epileptic_Ebola.

#autechre #gantz graf #alex rutterford #music

#autechre #Gantz Graf #glitch #Youtube #music

Get well soon.

Concept · Case Thickness

22 November 2018

This post is, admittedly, not "high concept", just a mere curiosity. This Autechre EP Gantz Graf is the only case I have of its size, though I have no doubt there are many others. There are also other standard cases which are similar in thickness to the standard CD jewel case which I don't have examples of, such as HDCD, SACD, etc. There was usually a successful branding with these later discs to provide customers with a jewel case style experience just different enough from the standard case that, if you were looking for it, you could easily identify it, often by changing the proportion or corners just slightly.

This Autechre case was designed to hold two discs, the CD and an accompanying DVD. I suspect its primary purpose was to stand out, as the standard-width jewel case that held two CDs was already quite common at this point, and Autechre's Tri Repetae+++ had already been released in such a case. Gantz Graf appearing in this style of case was almost certainly meant to put the customer on notice that this was something slightly different. I would also argue that it's a career highlight, but that's another matter—the few opening bars of “Gantz Graf” has been my ring and alarm tone for about eight years now, and I've never been slightly motivated to change it.

It made me curious whether there was any rhyme or reason to the sizes of the various cases in relation to one another.

The Gantz Graf CD is smaller than the boondoggle of many collections, the original two-CD jewel case. While both of these cases contain a lot of space for a rather substantial booklet of liner notes, neither of these releases actually have booklets which would tax even a normal single-CD jewel case. The Autechre release only has a single-sheet bifold. As I said, physically, these releases could be held in jewel cases no thicker than standard releases as more efficient jewel cases were developed, though as my CDs have aged, some of those two-CD jewel case designs are clearly much hardier designs for long-term use than others have proved to be. Like the two-CD cases, the thicker case of /Gantz Graf/ allows uninterrupted artwork and typography on the side. It would have been a more attractive solution had it been more widespread.

In fact, here's how this DVD+CD case matches up to a standard jewel case, and it's actually Tri Repetae+++, one of those two-CD jewel cases that were designed better than others. Some two-cd cases with more clear plastics tend to be more fragile now, which is unfortunate, as they also allow for more attractive designs, but for Tri Repetae+++, it works well, since this album is a single colour with no text.

On a whim, I picked up a slimline CD single case, and this along with a standard jewel case is almost exactly the size of the combined DVD + CD case used for the Gantz Graf release. I can't hazard an authoritative guess as to whether this was intentional, but as it doesn't seem to solve any problems by being intentional, I suppose it wasn't.

On the subject of the CD single, it was always a more fragile beast than the CD jewel case, and at a bit over half the thickness, I was curious what the lowest multiple of each it would take to get an even stack. You know, for science.

The stack ended up being a lot more convenient than I feared, only requiring a three-high CD single stack and two CD jewel cases to come out almost perfectly even. I toyed around with those clunky two-CD cases, but they come out to such an odd dimension and never working out quite right that it ended up being unsatisfying and I just put them all back.

About the only good those two-CD wide cases were ever good for were when later incarnations actually used that extra space to hold more CDs (I believe six is the most I saw in that format if I recall), or used that lavish amount of extra space to hold a booklet large enough that it actually wouldn't have fit into a traditional CD jewel case, which I only encountered a few times, and was usually reserved for special box set or specialty music compilations.

#retail ephemera #compact discs #jewel cases #autechre #gantz graf #cd single