Coco Solid: My kind of rewind

Coco Solid's new album Pacific Rims is out on cassette. Photo / Supplied

Vinyl is so passe. Cassette tape is the cool new old music format to covet - at least that's the thinking of Auckland rapper and new wave roller Coco Solid (real name Jess Hansell).

Her latest album-cum-mixtape, Pacific Rims, is out on cassette and comes complete with the warm audio hiss, the shrill beeps that signal the beginning and end of each side, and 12 moochy and sauntering tracks.

Coco's always been a fan of keeping things old school. The last time she talked to TimeOut was in 2008 when she was getting her record Graffiti Girls For Life pressed on pretty pink vinyl. But Pacific Rims is on a format that is even more dear to her heart.

The first cassingles Coco and her sister Hayley J. (who also features on the mixtape) bought were by the likes of Michael Jackson, Kylie Minogue, and, most important of all for Coco, Neneh Cherry's 1988 hit Buffalo Stance. "She's still my idol," she says.

And Coco also put out her first release on cassette, the brilliantly lo-fi and wily mixtape Rap'n'Roll from 2003 which was a collection that not only defined her style of music but her DIY and collaborative music-making ethic.

"For me tapes were always such a natural thing. I'm from the era where it was the main medium of music, so it's never really left my heart. Vinyl is pretty unique, a lot more expensive, and more boutique. But cassettes are pretty accessible."

For a bit of "generational duality" Pacific Rims will also be available for free download from her website following the tour which started in Hamilton last night. "So people who are into that disposable thing can get the download and others who are into coveting stuff can get the tape."

Releasing it on tape was partly inspired by wandering around the recent inorganic collections in Auckland. "People were putting out old VHS tapes on the sidewalk and my heart sank. Those collections are a total tip-off to where people are at." So she thought it was about time the humble cassette enjoyed a resurgence. But who has a tape player these days?

"There are still a lot of car stereos that never got upgraded," she laughs. "And I still like the tape deck element on a stereo. And I've been asking people if they still have tape players and more people than you'd expect are hanging on to their Walkmans, and the little tape decks their dad uses when he's under the house."

So with Auckland's Stebbing Recording Studios on board to manufacture the tapes ("I rang them and asked, 'Do you even do that or has it been totally wiped out?"), and with an urge to get back to some Coco Solid-style music following recent collaborative projects as Parallel Dance Ensemble and Badd Energy, she went about gathering some of her favourite local and international beat makers to contribute to the album.

They include Wellington's dizzying one-man band Disasteradio, pioneering Auckland veterans Unitone Hi-Fi (on the grubby dub throb of Amateur), and the bubbling and bouncy techno pulse of Mexican producer Pepepe on I'll See You Inside, as well as other producers she met at the Red Bull Music Academy in Spain during 2008.

Though there are many different music styles on Pacific Rims - moving from the deadpan g-funk of Hypnotizing Me to the eerie electric lash of 80s-inspired Architecture - it's all brought together by the cheeky bravado and laid-back swagger of Coco's raps and rhymes.

"I really love all the musicians and they are all my friends and they all totally got the vibe I was on. There is a selector element behind putting a mixtape together and I think for the first time I put a lot more energy into curating it. I was careful about the flow and the energy from the very first notes to the last. I wanted the beat-makers to be fairly represented but also not dumped in the middle of something they didn't like."

Though there are new tracks, some of the songs have been around for a few years but she's never had an outlet for them. The Unitone Hi-Fi track was done in 2009, and the fruity throb of G is for Girls (featuring Portuguese rapper Violet and London producer Subeena) is also an older song.

"It's closure on a lot of material and a lot of things I've had sitting in the background for a while. I'm ready to go on into a whole new era and anything is possible in terms of what I get into next. It's definitely on the cusp of a new wave and direction for me. I have no idea what that is yet though."

LOWDOWN

Who: Coco Solid
What: Pacific Rims, cassette tape available at shows; entry also includes a download link to get it digitally. Following the tour the mixtape will be available as a free download from cocosolid.com
On tour: Space Monster, Wanganui, July 1; San Francisco Bath House, Wellington, July 2; Rising Sun, Auckland, July 14. For full tour dates see cocosolid.com