The revival of interest in vinyl records has been fascinating to watch over the last few years, but who would have thought that the lowly audio cassette, the format that essentially replaced vinyl, would get its own nostalgia trip?

Zack Taylor and Seth Smoot are the documentary movie team who want to make Cassette, which explores the motivation behind the current resurgence of interest in the little plastic tapes.

Unlike the vinyl record's revival which has been driven from two sides by both audiophiles and hipsters, almost nobody is going back to cassettes professing claims of superior sound quality. There are a few audiophiles turning back to open reel tape, but that's another story. With cassettes the appeal seems to be more cultural, and a feeling that we lost something when friends stopped passing around mix tapes to spread the word about their taste in music.

Another departure from the vinyl resurgence is the lack of new cassette hardware. While new big buck turntables continue to flood the audiophile salons, practically nobody is still in the cassette deck business. Consequently, vintage high-end machines like the Nakamichi Dragon I'm lucky enough to own, now bring strong money on Ebay. Heck, even rare remaining stocks of top of the pile blank tapes like Sony's Super Metal Master are going for over $100 per tape.

Cassette is still looking for funding over on Kickstarter, so if you want to relive a time when you would try to woo a new friend with a bitchin' mixtape, why not toss them a few bucks to help pay for the film.

Cassette, via TechCrunch