Tas-O-Phone

Sponsor - Tas-o-Phone Co., The Refined Music House, Madurai, Madura State, India Distributor - D. N. Seetharama Setty, Madurai Manufacturer - Carl Lindstrom, A. G., Berlin (Initial Releases) - Blue color labels The Gramophone Co., Ltd. Dum Dum - Deep Green color labels Period of operations - 1934 to 1938 The Refined Music House, was established by Mr. Thankappan at College Road, Madurai. A new label –Tas-O-Phone , was introduced. Tas-O-Phone was distributed by Seethaphone Co. Bangalore. This was under the co-exploiting agreement with C. E. Woods=Scaven, 7-2nd lane, Beach, Madras, as the agents for Carl Lindström A.G. The first batch of records were pressed in Germany at ‘Odeon=werke’, Berlin, up to 1932. In this release, catalogue nos. from TS.1 to TS.34 were included. These were blue label discs. In the same year, sole agency for Odeon records was given to the Saraswathi Stores, Madras, and no further recordings were made. The agreement of Refined Music House with Carl Lindström was not renewed and Seethaphone, the distributors of Tas-o-phone had terminated their bussiness arrangement with Carl Lindström and had become the sole agents for “Young India”. In 1934, pressing of the Indian Odeon records were transferred to India and further pressings were done by the Gramophone Co. Ltd. Dum Dum, Calcutta. Further pressing of ‘Tas-O-Phone’ label discs was done at Dum Dum. These Indian pressings were green in color. The “TS” series had reached 85 titles when production stopped in 1938. Out of total recordings made in the ME- matrix series from ME-100 to ME-400, only 170 titles were released by the Refined Music House.