JapanSylvian.com

Hi
I bought an Alchemy (Index Of Possibilities) on a vinyl 12" many years ago, in the 80`s from a record fair.
It has a self portrait shot of Sylvian on the cover from the Perspectives book. Knowing, at the time that this was a Cassette only release, i snapped it up. It says promo only on the cover, which led me to believe it was a bootleg, but lately ive been wondering what the point woulda been, making a bootleg of something that wouldn`t sell many copies anyway.
Any idea`s ??

The vinyl version I have is the same one shown on Samadhisound - http://www.davidsylvian.com/discography/albums.html
with a portrait photo on the back taken by Yuka Fujii - came out in 1985.

I also have the cassette which came out in the same year - the cover is a detail of the cover painting shown on the vinyl version, has the same photo on the inlay. Was the cassette a limited edition or something - it is numbered on the front? Both formats have all the same material, bought them when they came out.

I've never seen or heard of a promo copy, would love to see the cover of that.

Hi
Yes i have both the regular 12" and the cassette only release too. This vinyl 12" i have, contains the same tracks as the cassette only version, thus making it, id guess, a mini-album.
If you have the Perspectives book, the picture is in there.

I made a mistake with the 12 inch I have, that doesn't contain all of the tracks as the tape.

Very cool item you have, and a nice find.

Now if I could only find the Japanese Perspectives at a thrift shop...

Jumping in late as usual.

The Vinyl heartofdavid has isn't Alchemy - It's the 'Words With The Shaman' 12" Single.

I've never seen a vinyl that looks like the one on davidsylvian.com either - it looks like a mock up (unless someone knows differently) It's similar, but not the same as the 2003 CD version. The original Cassette has a purple theme and a detail of that picture on the CD/website.

I have a Vinyl which I also bought at a record fair many moons ago. It purports to be released on Virgin Australia. It is a mainly purple sleeve with a small version of the same detail used on the cassette release and text. The back sleeve has a small version of the Sylvian pic mentioned elsewhere.

Yes, the cassette was limited, but demand probably wasn't that great at the time (despite it beng one of his best works IMHO)

I do seem to remember seeing a copy of the cassette that came in a presentation box - but that might be my mind playing tricks on me

Sonic

as Sonic says the original release was a limited edition on cassette only