The official story is clean: MGMT signed to Columbia in 2006, released Oracular Spectacular in 2007, and the rest is history. But the seeds of that album were planted a year earlier on a homemade run of CD-Rs.
The catalog number identifies the specific CD EP release under the Cantora Records label. For audiophiles and "hot" track hunters, finding this version in FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) is critical because it preserves the original, unpolished production of tracks like "Time to Pretend" and "Kids" before they were re-recorded for major labels.
But somewhere deep in the forums—on /r/riprequests, Soulseek, or private music trackers—a different beast lurks. A myth. A piece of plastic that changed the trajectory of Brooklyn indie rock before it even left the burner.
When you finally hear that raw, uncompressed FLAC rip of CANRCD 01, you won’t just hear a song. You’ll hear a ghost in the data—two college kids, a cheap burner, and a time that pretends to be gone, preserved perfectly in 16-bit/44.1kHz glory.
is the highly sought-after original US CD release. It captures the band while they were still known as " The Management Time to Pretend (4:29) Boogie Down (3:33) Destrokk (3:45) Love Always Remains (5:38) Indie Rokkers (4:24) Kids (5:28) Sound Quality : Fans often hunt for this in format to preserve the lo-fi synth-pop charm that
Discogs listings for this specific CD-R are rarer than hen's teeth. When they do pop up, expect to pay $300+ for the physical disc.
While “Time to Pretend” is the headline, the CANRCD 01 disc holds two other absolute gems that never saw the light of day on streaming:
