Somewhat surprisingly, Chemicals giant Imperial Chemical Industries several ventures into the world of records. Mostly the company devoted its attention to Classical music, licensing popular items from the repertoire and issuing them in 7" form, but it was also responsible for some original recordings, such as the Jackie Lee single shown, 'Sleep' b/w 'Space Age Lullaby' (ICI-1 / 2; 1972) - thanks to Robert Bowes for that scan. An initial Classical series appeared in the '60s, with numbering in the GB-0s; the first EP had a red label, which had changed to black by the time that the third one came out (1). These were pressed by Decca and the material on them was taken from Decca recordings of the 1950s. A second, shorter, Classical series followed in the '70s, with a changed label design and IC-0 catalogue numbers. These were sourced from Music For Pleasure and were pressed by EMI; the white 'box' label is a copy of one used for Classics For Pleasure albums at the time, with the CFP logo replaced by the ICI one (2). One of the three EPs in this series, IC-3, appears to have been reissued as part of MFP's 'The Music Masters' set in September 1972, as MM-30017; while another EP in that set, MM-30007, seems to have been licensed to ICI and reissued as IC-4, presumably in or around 1973 - MM-30017 has a matrix number of IC-3 in the run-off, and IC-4's matrix number is MM-30007. For all the Classical records the dates on the label refer to the year in which the pieces of music were released by the original companies. The EPs, which generally had coloured picture sleeves, seem to have been intended to be used as promotional items; presumably they were given away rather than sold. The 'discography' below, is sadly gappy, as they so often are.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.