How to Make a Mixtape Again — A Slow Ritual for a Fast World

Making a real mixtape in the modern world — a slow, analogue ritual of intention, care and deep listening, built track by track on a cassette deck.

By Rafi Mercer

There’s a quiet kind of bravery in making a mixtape today.
Not a playlist.
Not a digital mix shared with a link and forgotten by morning.
A real tape — magnetic, imperfect, physical, patient.

In a world built on speed and frictionless choice, a cassette slows the pulse to the gentle rotation of its spools. It asks for your time. It asks for your attention. It asks you to care. And maybe that’s the reason it matters more now than it ever did in the 80s or 90s. Back then, it was ordinary. Today, it feels almost defiant — a small return to the texture of being human.

To make a mixtape is to step slightly outside of time.
And perhaps that’s why the ritual still holds its quiet power.

This isn’t a technical guide. It’s a way of thinking — a blueprint for how to approach a tape with intention, and a small invitation to bring something analogue back into your life. Yes, you’ll need a little investment: a tape deck, a handful of blank cassettes, maybe a decent stylus or a DAC to feed the signal in cleanly. But once you’ve made one tape properly, you realise you’ve built something much bigger: a toolkit for making dozens more, for friends, for partners, for yourself.

A mixtape isn’t nostalgia.
It’s generosity.
And generosity tends to multiply.

Begin with the person.
Every good mixtape starts with a feeling, with someone you’re thinking about before you’ve even touched the turntable or queued a single track. You’re not assembling songs; you’re crafting a conversation you’re not quite ready to speak aloud. A mixtape is a letter disguised as a sequence.

Think of the arc.
Playlists stack.
Tapes breathe.

You’re building a small emotional journey — an opening that invites, a drift that widens, a reveal that says the thing you didn’t, a quiet moment that sinks deeper, and a soft return that lands gently before you close the door. Ending a tape is its own art. Don’t finish with the biggest track — finish with the truest. A final note that lingers rather than concludes.

Let the imperfections stay.
A little hiss, a pause between tracks, a slight unevenness in the level — all of it is evidence of a hand, a moment, a presence. Analogue doesn’t pretend. It simply offers itself as it is.

Then there’s the ritual of the tape deck.
Real time.
Real listening.
No shortcuts.

You sit there for 45 minutes recording Side A. You sit again for Side B. You hear the transitions, feel the pacing, sense when a track belongs or doesn’t. The tape teaches you how to listen. The real gift is the time you spend inside the music as you make it.

And when it’s done — when the reels have spooled and the label has been written in your own handwriting — you have something rare. A physical object that holds your attention. A small piece of yourself you’re willing to give.

A Simple Modern Template

Side A — The Invitation

1. The warm hello
2. The gentle lift
3. The first reveal
4. The quiet truth
5. The turning point
6. The soft landing

Side B — The Saying of the Thing

1. The second beginning
2. The deeper question
3. The night-time track
4. The moment of clarity
5. The soft goodbye
6. The afterglow

Name the tape carefully.
Handwrite the tracklist.
Add a note that doesn’t explain everything — just enough.
The rest, they’ll hear.

Because making a mixtape in this world is like lighting a candle in a room of LEDs — unnecessary, perhaps, but undeniably meaningful. Someone will hold it. Flip it. Hear the breath between tracks. And know instantly that you made something for them no algorithm ever could.

In a world rushing to be heard, the mixtape listens.

Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters.
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