OCCURRENCE

Cat Hollyer (vocals) • Johnny Hager (vocals) • Ken Urban (electronics)

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 Occurrence. If you’ve ever worn all black on the outside because that’s how you feel on the inside or wished that Noel Coward had lived long enough to make laptop pop, you’re likely to find something to sigh along with here. 

Occurrence is the brainchild of Ken Urban. He started Occurrence as an outlet for the experimental instrumental music he was making in private. After leaving New York and moving to Boston, he reconnected with some old friends and they encouraged him to take his music making more seriously. He started issuing albums in limited circulation to friends. In 2011, he started making tracks with Wayne S. Feldman, based around cassette tapes that Wayne found at estate and garage sales. Selected tracks from that period are available on the Bandcamp-only compilation The Mind Won’t Let Us Forget (2010-2015).

In 2013, Ken moved back to New York, and 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. The result was 2016’s The Past Will Last Forever, featuring contributions from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s Kip Berman and Worshipper’s Alex Necochea. 

For shows in support of the album, Cat and Ken invited Johnny Hager to join the band as a second vocalist. A native of Mexico City, Johnny became both Ken’s musical and romantic partner. The trio began work on a second album, recording at their studio in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City. Everyone Knows the Disaster Is Coming was released on June 15, 2018. On the night of their last show in support of the album, they released a mini-album of new songs and remixes called If He Were Here, donating all proceeds to anti-gun violence charities.

Three non-album singles – “All My Days,” “Dead Sleep Best,” and “Privacy Invaders” – were released in 2020. 

A new album I Have So Much Love to Give will be released on August 20, 2021. The album will be proceeded by four singes from the album, each backed with a non-album B-Side: “I Have So Much Love to Give,” “The Happy Years,” “Boy Joy,” and “My Eternal Autumn.”

WEBSITE // BANDCAMP // SPOTIFY // APPLE MUSIC // IG // YOUTUBE // TWITTER