Cult Love Sound Tapes

Cult Love's first real introduction to DIY music communities was through the Oklahoma Hardcore scene during our teenage years. The Creative Room, Boulevard Trash, Rudy's, The Marquee, The Conservatory, and all numbers of fleeting, random come-and-go rooms in random buildings and churches were our first encounters with our own real, grass roots music. At their hearts, hardcore and punk are ultimately youth movements. New takes on old sounds, or flagrant revivals of bygone styles. Nothing has ever seemed to capture the spirit and energy of young people quite like punk music does. Without the exposure to hardcore during such impressionable years of our lives, it'd be easy to argue that Cult Love would have simply never come to exist.

Oklahoma, and especially Tulsa, has a very rich history of punk music. There was a whole 2hr documentary created to trace its lineage and narratives titled, "Oil Capital Underground", released in 2018. Larry Clark's infamous "Tulsa" photography book documents the proto-punk scene of the 60s in rich and unfiltered detail. The S*x Pistols played the Cains Ballroom as one of the few handful of stops of their American tour that actually came to fruition before their break up (local lore has it that there is still a hole in the wall at the back of Cains from where a wasted Sid Vicious threw a stray punch). Folks and friends our parents' age regularly attest to the rowdiness, influence, and experimentation of rural Okie punk scenes from days before. And Cult Love can certainly speak to the prominence, if not dominance, of the greater Oklahoma Hardcore scene all through our consciously lived years; to this day it is still the most consistently active music community statewide (next to the New Tulsa Sound, Red Dirt, and folk/country, of course) regardless of the ebb & flows so commonly associated with adolescent governed scenes.

Anywhere and at anytime since the late 20th century, it seems punk and its umbrella microgenres have existed and persisted; that's the real beauty of "punk", its unbound pervasiveness from CBGBs to Cowpoke, USA. Despite the controversies and debates, its conflicting intertwining with social media appearances and short form video content, rising, if not established, "mainstream" presence, and old school versus new school arguments, hardcore punk remains a steady vital pulse of culture and influence across the globe. Tulsa Hardcore Vol. 1 was produced for the sake of documenting our currently active and burgeoning hardcore scene, particularly associated with the DIY all ages space, Mass Movement Community Arts. We recognize the fleetingness of creative moments and communities, and we feel the importance of capturing it as purely as possible in all that it is, while it is. So we present to you nine Tulsa hardcore bands, from melodic hardcore to beatdown to traditional hardcore punk, from seasoned "old heads" to teenage newcomers, for your digestion and appreciation.

At the end of the day, these communities thrive because of in person engagement. We implore you to attend a show, get involved, make friends, and start a band; make a loud noise, hardcore, punk, or otherwise.

Tulsa Hardcore 2026
Limited run of 100 hand numbered cassettes.
Special thanks to Mass Movement and all the bands
Curated and arranged by LoDrum and Natty Gray
Mastered for tape by Gabriel Wheat
Art and design by George Christ

https://cultlovesoundtapes.bandcamp.com/album/tulsa-hardcore-vol-1

"Pitfalls and The Promise: A Bonemagic Best Of", limited run of 50 hand numbered cassettes. Rural Oklahoma industrial harsh noise.

https://cultlovesoundtapes.bandcamp.com/album/pitfalls-and-the-promise-a-bonemagic-best-of

Hailing from Chicago, IL, MENSA have found their niche in the debut EP/Demo/Whatever titled, “CLASSTRAITOR”. Describing them as “alternative hardcore” for lack of a better appropriate encapsulation of their sound, MENSA falls somewhere within the venn diagram of contemporary hardcore, screamo, and mathcore (with of course a twinge of emo, it is the Midwest afterall). Between crowdkill worthy breakdowns, eerie, emotional envelopes, dissonant, headspinning culminations and comedowns, and the samples sprinkled across the twenty-minute document of despair and disillusionment, MENSA reflects a disturbing picture of the contemporary realities of the American dream and its self-contradicting, self-obfuscating framework through the individuals forcibly upholding it.

For a twenty-minute debut, MENSA manages to cover a lot of ground sonically on “CLASSTRAITOR”. Not only showcasing a capacity for technical aggression in their songwriting but also an ability to write evocative, emotional pieces as well. The highlight of their greater sound is this juxtaposition of mathy hardcore moments and chaotic hostility with emotive, skramz-adjacent crescendos and poignant ornamentations that strengthen and play off each other. “CLASSTRAITOR” doesn’t shy away from more explicit experimentation in their work either. Rhythmic noise, atmospheric dissonance and instrumentation help paint a rather frigid picture of a struggling Midwest. Faced with a bleak future in the blight of an increasingly uninhabitable, cruel world, all the while squirming under a blanket of US-sanctioned economic suppression, if not oppression, MENSA manages to embody it all, pulling back the veil and unapologetically biting at the world around them.

Fans of emotional hardcore, the rebirth of emoviolence, and even early metalcore will find something to love in MENSA’s “CLASSTRAITOR”. Must-listen newcomers stepping out on the stones of a rich history of Midwestern alternative, subversive, underground music. A band to keep your eyes on.

https://cultlovesoundtapes.bandcamp.com/album/classtraitor