Dude, I wanna say in like, 2003, I was recording bands to cassette in my parents basement on a tascam portastudio. It was a decent one, with nice meters, and faders. I think it had 8 inputs, obviously mixed down to 4 tracks. It was a blast. I've been meaning to get a newer model portastudio. Lots of people still actually use them. Off the top of my head, Alessandro Cortini was using cassettes live with Nine Inch Nails like, a couple years ago. He'd have loops recorded to each track, and use the faders to bring in the parts.
Just starting to listen to your tracks, sounds hilarious.
Yeah, I know people are still using them and in some circles they are seen as "vintage". I find it funny how that goes. You get these guys on audio-fora going on about how VHS-tapes bring that special kind of mojo, or 12-bit samplers. I might try it too at some point. I remember it was fun playing stuff backwards or recording double speed; things like that. That's not really the same in computers.
I literally posted a VHS image I made yesterday hahaha