We Are Rewind has unveiled a new limited edition of its portable WE-001 cassette player made together with synthwave duo The Midnight. The We Are Rewind The Midnight edition pairs the brand’s retro-futuristic design language with the neon-soaked aesthetic that has defined The Midnight’s sound since 2012, and ships with the duo’s latest album, Syndicate, pressed on a purple swirl cassette.
We Are Rewind The Midnight: A Design Built Around a Neon Sunset
According to We Are Rewind co-founder Romain Boudruche, the collaboration felt like an obvious fit from the very beginning, since The Midnight’s visual universe is rooted in the same retro-futuristic, neon-wave aesthetic that runs through We Are Rewind’s cassette culture. The circular viewing window on the We Are Rewind The Midnight player has been reimagined as the striped sunset so closely tied to the duo’s album art, turning a functional detail of the cassette mechanism into the edition’s signature visual. Boudruche added that the player “almost seemed designed” for this treatment, and that the team is particularly proud of how naturally The Midnight’s visual universe translated onto a physical product.
The Midnight, formed by Tim McEwan and Tyler Lyle in Los Angeles in 2012, has built a catalogue of number-one albums and sold-out tours around exactly the kind of 1980s-inspired synth sound that We Are Rewind’s cassette players are designed to celebrate. “We’re ’80s kids, and we learned that music came from plastic cassettes,” the duo said of the project, describing it as a time machine that brings forward something from their childhood rather than simply returning to it. The band have spent over a decade building a devoted following around that nostalgia, and the We Are Rewind collaboration gives fans a physical, collectible way to own a piece of that catalogue rather than a purely digital one.
Modern Hardware in a Classic Format
Underneath the collaboration artwork, the We Are Rewind The Midnight player keeps the technical foundation of the standard WE-001. Bluetooth 5.1 lets it pair wirelessly with headphones, speakers or soundbars, while a built-in rechargeable battery is rated for up to 12 hours of playback. A 3.5mm headphone output and forward/rewind controls preserve the tactile cassette experience, and a line-in recording function lets owners create their own mixtapes or voice recordings with a compatible microphone. We Are Rewind also lists an upgraded frequency response of 30 Hz to 14,500 Hz (±3dB) for this generation of players, an improvement the brand says makes a noticeable difference compared with the sound of an original 1980s deck.
The release continues a pattern for We Are Rewind, which has increasingly paired its hardware with specific artists and albums rather than releasing plain colourways. Earlier editions have included a Freddie Mercury-inspired wireless headphone and a Pink Floyd version of the WE-001, and the brand says further artist collaborations are already in development for the format.
Pricing and availability
The We Are Rewind The Midnight edition, complete with the purple swirl pressing of Syndicate, goes on sale on 1 October directly through We Are Rewind, priced at €179, £159 and $199. The Midnight are currently touring North America and Europe as part of their Time Machines tour.
Key specifications
- Limited We Are Rewind The Midnight edition of the WE-001 portable cassette player
- Includes The Midnight’s album Syndicate on a purple swirl cassette
- Bluetooth 5.1 connectivity, up to 12 hours of battery life
- 3.5mm headphone output, forward/rewind controls, line-in recording
- Frequency response: 30 Hz – 14,500 Hz (±3dB)
- Price: €179 / £159 / $199; on sale from 1 October 2026
Best of High End previously covered the We Are Rewind WE-001 Pink Floyd Edition, another artist collaboration built on the same cassette player platform. For more, visit We Are Rewind.
