We Are Rewind takes tape into the twenty first century

The Eighties revival is all very properly in vogue, the place it may be expressed by each classic finds and up to date reimaginings. Know-how, then again, often ages badly and there’s virtually at all times a contemporary substitute that’ll do the job higher and with much less fuss.

Nonetheless, as the continued vinyl revival reveals, bodily codecs are having a second – turntables are the most recent must-have gadgets of home design (and are gloriously explored in Phaidon’s Revolution: The Historical past of Turntable Design). Even CDs are quickly ascending in recognition – 2021 was the primary time CD gross sales rose since 2004 – however the format that’s discovering most foreign money with music makers and listeners alike is the standard cassette tape.

We Are Rewind moveable Cassette Participant

We Are Rewind is a French firm arrange by Romain Boudruche. Unashamedly spurred on by the retro revivalism at play in movie and TV, Boudruche sought to convey the standard moveable cassette participant again to life. The corporate’s first product is the deeply minimalist ‘Cassette Participant’, out there in three colors Keith, Kurt and Serge (gray, blue and orange, respectively) – the sober black is only for present.

The machine attracts apparent parallels with the most effective examples of the style from again within the day, most notably Sony’s peerless Walkman line, and specifically the long-lasting Walkman Skilled and the cult stylings of the yellow Sports activities Walkman sequence. The newcomer is cast from aluminium, not plastic, and references the squared-off simplicity of the earliest moveable cassette gamers. 

All the pieces is geometric and pared again – there are not any fancy devices like auto-reverse or graphic equalisers, not to mention a Dolby swap. We Are Rewind has made some concessions to up to date calls for with the addition of Bluetooth (on high of a normal headphone jack), and a built-in chargeable battery as an alternative of counting on old-fashioned ‘AA’ or ‘AAA’ cells.

Able to file your mixtape 2022

Lastly, the Cassette Participant presents up the last word performance – the power to file from an exterior supply. The unique compact cassette was created by Philips again within the early Sixties – the format is nearly to have a good time its sixtieth yr. Will the return of the cassette show {that a} mixtape means a lot greater than a playlist?