This week CL's Vibes feature story, Rewind takes a look at the cassette tape resurgence that's taking place amidst certain indie circles. More and more, cassette tapes are showing up on merch tables, vying for space alongside records and CDs. They are cheap to make, and they've become cool and kitschy little art objects, and like vinyl, they possess a distinct sonic quality.

Chad Radford: Do you think cassette tapes could become a viable commercial format again?

Gerard Cosloy (of Matador Records): I'm sure someone thought vinyl would never be a viable format again.

Smaller labels, like Woodsist and Burger Records are fully embracing them. Would Matador consider releasing cassettes again?

If we thought we could sell enough to justify the hassle/cost of doing so, I don't see why not. At the moment, it would sort of feel like we were aping Burger or Woodsist.

What about for a group like Times New Viking who’s sound is tailor-made for it to a degree?

We've talked about it a couple of times but Times New Viking are pretty good at making their own cassettes and selling 'em on the road. I mean, we'll see where it goes. There's no point in our ruling it out, but the moment in which it would've been seen as a fun stunt or something reverse-innovative was a year or two ago, not now.

It seems fun and Burger have certainly done a great job; their catalog and roster to date reveals excellent taste. And for some folks, especially in the extreme noise community, cassettes never really went away. But there's a slight economic factor to this as well. A $5 cassette on a band's merch table can seem like an appealing impulse purchase, especially compared to a $10+ CD or LP. I'd still rather purchase and play vinyl, but when 7" singles are routinely being sold for $6 and up, a full album's worth of material for $5 on cassette is a good deal for somebody, I'm sure.

What’s your role at Burger Records?

Sean Bohrman I co-own Burger Records with Brian Flores and Lee Rickard

Why did you decide to start a cassette tape label?

We don’t only do cassettes but we focus on cassettes because no one else was doing it. There were a few people doing it, but it was mostly just people recording demos on tape because it’s easier to do it that way, but no one was making super high quality, nice tapes anymore. We knew a lot of bands from being in Make Out Party so we hit up NOBUNNY and the Go, and a lot of our favorite bands and it snowballed from there. We’re putting out the Black Lips tapes next. Then we’ve been talking to the Quick and a few other bands.

What Black Lips tapes are you releasing?

We’re doing 200 Million Thousand, Good Bad Not Evil and Let it Bloom on cassette.

How big of a run will you do?

We’re doing 500 of each. We’ve pressed 3 editions of NOBUNNY’s Raw Romance tape and are sold out of them – we did about a thousand of them. We sold close to 1,000 of the King Tuff Was Dead tape, and Hunx sold 500. People are ordering them everyday. We sell them to some smaller distros. We have a deal with Revolver, which is one of the bigger distros, but they don’t take tapes. They take our vinyl, but we’re selling the tapes mostly through the website. It’s catching on because it’s so cheap to do, and most of the people who are buying our tapes aren’t driving nice cars – some of them are – but most of them don’t have cars with an iPod hook-up, and have tape players in their cars. My CD player doesn’t work, but the tape player does and I want to listen to listen to music in my car, so I’m putting it out on tape.

Across the board, the first thing that people say when I ask why they release cassettes, is "they’re cheap."

Just because they're cheap doesn't mean you shouldn't make them as good as you possibly can. We've tried dubbing our own tapes, but they sounded terrible. We go through a company called M2 Com for that, and we get them mastered through a sound engineering teacher in Sacramento, who masters the tapes to be louder. Then we try to hand-color them, cut them and stuff them ourselves; make them as personal as possible. As long as you put your heart into it, people will see it.

Why does the King Tuff tape sound so much better than the LP?

It was remastered for the tape. That album rules by the way.

It does indeed. Do you think cassettes will become a viable, commercial format again?

We’re working with Vice and In the Red and hopefully Matador and Sub Pop soon about doing tapes. I don’t think it has caught on with them, which is good for us because we can say hey, we’ll do the tape and they’ll let us do it for free or for some copies, or something like that. I hope they don’t catch on, because we’re making money on it.

There is a novelty aspect about tapes that’s kind of a double-edged sword. Some people hate them and are irritated by the trend of young, hipster types being so enthusiastic about them, though that’s not much of an argument against them…

I get people like Danny from the Quick who says ‘you guys are crazy for releasing cassettes.’ But it’s not crazy. It’s working and that’s all I can say. We just opened a store in Fullerton, and it started with tapes. We really love it. I’m surviving off it. My whole life is records, and everyone involved with Burger is the same way. It’s our lives, and this is what we’ll be remembered for when we’re dead. So it’s extremely important for us and that’s why we care so much.

How did ZAP Cassettes get started?

John Klax:  I started ZAP Cassettes back in December 2006. At the time it was just a name to throw on a tape a group of friends and I recorded over a bored winter break in Augusta. I quickly drew a cover for the tape and threw a logo on the back as a joke. We made about 30 of these tapes and gave them away to our friends.

I continued to use the ZAP name on a few more recordings we made and on an ongoing series of mix tapes. My friends Jack and Arjun were into the idea of expanding a little. With their help and a high speed tape duplicator, we put out our first “large” release, the self-titled Pinche Gringo cassette. Of course “large” is relatively speaking -- we made just 100 copies. We hope to start doing larger runs of 200-300 copies in the near future.

As far as my role, I oversee all the ZAP Cassettes releases. I make the master tapes, make the duplicates, and create and print the artwork. With help, I package it all together and get the tapes to a select group of stores. I also sell our tapes online, and for some releases, upload free digital copies to The Internet Archive.

What do you like/love about tapes?

I'll be honest: I mostly like tapes because they are cheap. It's not too much of an investment to get a batch of tapes out. If I could afford to put things out on vinyl, I would. But beyond that, cassettes offer a lot of control. With cassettes I can personally produce each release. This brings down the cost, but it also allows me to get releases out exactly how I want them and on my own time table.

Tapes are a good middle ground between vinyl and CDs. They're cheaper to produce than vinyl but not so common as to be boring (and therefore disregarded) like CDs. Who buys CDs anymore anyway? And unlike digital files, you can put them on your shelf.

Who buys tapes?

I'm not sure who buys tapes exactly. It can be a hard sell because less and less people own tape decks now-a-days. But I like to think tapes are a great bargain. It's very common for tapes to run 60 minutes or more. All that music for just $5!

Why start and run a cassette label now?

I started the label with the intent to document the music my friends were making. Almost everyone I know tends to have some sort of music project going. Often, they might play some shows or record themselves a little, but beyond that, not much happens. I figured if I could encourage them to record, package their music in an unusual way, and get it out to friends, all while breaking even, nothing is lost. If other people enjoy the tapes too, even better.

What do you like about the format? Is it a sound quality thing? A tactile thing?

I like that cassettes have "A" and "B" sides just like records. Any good album takes advantage of the this break to create an interesting listening experience. I think a lot about a track list when making a cassette. What's the listener going to get when they flip that tape over for the first time?

I also like that it's not easy to skip tracks on a cassette. You tend to listen to a tape all the way through, or at least always in order. In an era of iPods and playlists, this is an important distinction.

Finally, the best thing about the format:  if the cassette sucks, you can just record over it.

Do you think tapes will become a commercially viable format again?

I don't see tapes becoming a viable format again, at least not for any label that has the money to put out vinyl. But for anyone looking to start their own label cheaply, tapes simply can't be beat.