Cassette Culture

“Cassette culture” is an international music scene that developed in the wake of punk in the second half of the 1970s and continued through into the first half of the 1980s (the "post-punk" period), and in some territories into the 1990s, in which a large number of amateur musicians outside the established music industry, usually recording in their homes and usually recording to cassette-tape devices, produced music, very often of a non-mainstream, or alternative character, that was then duplicated on cassette in very limited quantities and distributed free or sold at low cost to others involved in the scene and those who followed it. Often, these cassette-only albums of original music were completely self-produced by the artists, but small companies or labels also flourished during the period  [Con Tapes, Datenverarbeitung, Snatch Tapes, Sterile Records, Pleasantly Surprised, Third Mind Records, Cause For Concern, Onslaught magazine], producing cassette-only releases in small runs, both single-artist albums and compilations by various artists (in a few cases these labels also released vinyl). Numerous artists who first emerged at this time remain active today, some of them now releasing through commercial companies, others continuing with the DIY ethic of self-releasing on CD and the Internet. Since 2000 there has been a revival of the use of the cassette tape for the release of independent music (very often in conjunction with digital release) and a new “cassette scene” has sprung up."

From "Cassette Culture", Wikipedia (Retrieved 04/10/26)

See also
CA Discogs page
CA Tape-Mag page
Homemade Alien Music -- A series of podcasts of cassette music of the '80s and '90s from the archive of US cassettist Hal McGee
Wild Planet -- listing of c. 150 bands participating in the “Cassette Culture”, Sounds, 1983