Sounds from Summer 2024
A sonic moodboard for the season that was.
Remember when you noticed a new student in your class and tested the waters by handing them a mixtape you made? Or times when you wanted to start a band with someone so you each shared a mixtape of the music you love to see how your tastes align? We miss the days of making mixtapes for new acquaintances, to send a musical message to our crushes, to commemorate special occasions, or simply to spread the word about cool music to our friends. These days, our means of communication have shifted but we remain fans of the art of creating a mix, so this is our first offering: Occulture’s seasonal playlist.
This is a collection of sounds from the season that was, from recent releases we like and nuggets we dug out from the digital record crate to artists that were on our radar this season.
No Values Fest was a massive congregation of punks and plain-clothed music lovers which was an overall success for its first year aside from the hellacious parking delays festival attendees endured. In fact, there’s plenty of social media groups and comment threads discussing this but our friends Lina Lecaro and Lyndsey Parker did great write-ups about the festival that you should check out whether or not you were there for it all. For those who made it out of the parking lot and into the festival, a standout moment was Steve Ignorant Band’s performance of the Crass classic “Shaved Women” with the powerhouse vocals of Carol Hodge, who sounds as urgent in her delivery of the lyrics as its original vocal performance by Eve Libertine.
It wouldn’t be right to mention No Values Fest without including The Damned, who started their set with “Wait for the Blackout” and followed with a curated set of fan-favorites covering their impressively dense catalogue.
The official festival flyer for No Values, June 2024.
Our friends Head Cut released their second LP in May 2024 and one of our favorite tracks is featured on this playlist along with the latest single from fellow Southern California-based artist Geneva Jacuzzi. The video for her second single “Art is Dangerous” is a roll call of her comrades in the Los Angeles synth scene.
Back in April, French DJ, producer, and musician Mike Lévy’s solo project Gesaffelstein was one of most talked-about performances at Coachella. For electronic music fans, Gesaffelstein is a well-respected artist, so it was cool to see him receive widespread recognition and a new generation of fans via his appearance at this well-known music festival. For this playlist, we went back to the early days with a track from his first album.
The Moroccan punk band Taqbir has been on our radar for a while and while we wait for news about any upcoming releases or their new projects, Taqbir joins a number of other punk and dark alternative bands on this playlist that deserve to be heard. Maybe you’ll notice a theme with the legacy artists featured on this playlist—after all, the messages in the music are just as timely now as they were when they were originally recorded.
Taqbir’s self-titled debut EP was released in February 2021. Image: bandcamp.
Check out the playlist on Spotify and look out for the next one.
To be played at maximum volume.
