| Reserve a Seat |
“If Gregg Araki were to direct a lost John Hughes script about sullen teenagers and hired Matmos to create a new wave-inspired score, the result would probably sound a lot like the darkly beautiful music of Occurrence.” – Michael Tedder
In collaboration with the students in Josh Higgason’s Lighting Design (21M.734) course, Occurrence will play a set featuring songs from their latest release Everyone Knows the Disaster is Coming.
Led by Senior Lecturer Ken Urban, Occurrence is a darkwave electro-pop trio comprised of Urban and vocalists Cat Hollyer and Johnny Hager. Urban started Occurrence as an outlet for the experimental and mostly instrumental music he was making in private. In 2013, Ken reached out to his college friend Cat Hollyer, whom he hadn’t seen in almost twenty years. Now living in Lawrence, Kansas and writing for Hallmark, Cat confessed she was looking for a creative outlet when Ken reached out, and the pair began writing songs, trading demos online. The duo eventually completed their album The Past Will Last Forever. Released in October 2016, it featured appearances from a number of actors (Henry Fool star Thomas Jay Ryan and Polly Lee from TV’s The Americans) as well as other musicians (The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s Kip Berman and Worshipper’s Alejandro Necochea). One particularly notable contributor to The Past Will Last Forever was Johnny Hager, Ken’s boyfriend. A native of Mexico City, Johnny grew up singing opera and pop. When it was time for Occurrence to play its first-ever live show, Ken asked Johnny to join Cat on vocals. “It became clear the three of us had something special,” Ken recalls. Following that show, the trio began writing and recording new music in their Washington Heights studio. Occurrence released their latest album Everyone Knows the Disaster is Coming in June. The Southern Sounding called the album “a wiry brew of warbling electronics, fiery post-punk swagger and subtly mutated pop arrangements.”
