Cult Love Sound Tapes

Cult Love Sound Tapes Tulsa, OK based 501c3 art collective and cassette label. Established in 2015. Tulsa, OK art, music, and cassette collective. Formed in 2015.

LoDrum & Natty Gray

https://www.cultlovesoundtapes.com/

Direct Mutant Action "DMA-005 - Live At Tabasa with Mitsuru Tabata and Toshimaru Nakamura"Free jazz, the avant-garde, th...
04/22/2026

Direct Mutant Action "DMA-005 - Live At Tabasa with Mitsuru Tabata and Toshimaru Nakamura"

Free jazz, the avant-garde, the noisy and experimental, all "free", improvised music has enjoyed a rich, enduring history in the fringe and discerning corners of the archipelago that is Japan. Chicago-birthed and now Los Angeles-aging, psych-jazz group, Direct Mutant Action (comprised of sound artist, Rush Falknor, and drummer, Karissa Talanian) demonstrate a clear appreciation and influence of this ongoing lineage of technical innovation and sonic expansion, recently having toured parts of Honshu in the early Spring of 2025, collaborating and recording all along the way.

"DMA-005 - Live At Tabasa with Mitsuru Tabata and Toshimaru Nakamura", though a fairly direct and explanatory title, is in its whole a collection of material from DMA's performances across Tokyo, specifically rooted around the exploratory improvisation of the group as a quadruplet in the Asagaya bar, TABASA, alongside early Japanese noise and experimental innovators, Toshimaru Nakamura and Mitsuru Tabata.

The tape delivers a rather wide range of audible materials, beginning with a recording of DMA in a natural, somewhat minimalist form. Effected saxophone and harmonica, lobbed finger cymbals, and expressive, improvisational drumming, neither a bad nor overly alienating introduction for those unfamiliar with more avant-performance styles. A tasteful easing-in. The tape also features a remix track by another early Japanese noise innovator, Government Alpha, who presents a continually escalating, spacecraft-esque sonic chop job of the previous set. Equally as enthralling of an interloper is the subsequent field recording collage and modular manipulation delivered by DMA's saxophonist, Rush Falknor, that breaks up the two DMA performances alongside the prior Government Alpha remix. The climax of the tape, and its namesake, is of course the four-piece rendition of Direct Mutant Action at TABASA. Strange, harrowing, excessively funky and out there, even eerie at times, the DMA Tokyo Unit is a force to be reckoned with, evoking sensibilities reminiscent of The Stooges "LA Blues".

A diverse display of melodic dilapidations and rhythmic resurrections, an avant freak jazz tape for the ages rooted in congenial international collaboration and psychedelic sensibilities.

Limited run of 100 pad printed and produbbed cassette tapes released in collaboration with Eye Vybe Records out of Los Angeles.

https://cultlovesoundtapes.bandcamp.com/album/dma-005-live-at-tabasa-with-mitsuru-tabata-and-toshimaru-nakamura

Cult Love's first real introduction to DIY music communities was through the Oklahoma Hardcore scene during our teenage ...
03/31/2026

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAleC81FyXE
02/02/2026

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAleC81FyXE

MIDSOUTH SUMMER is a long form documentary film and sensory ethnography project shot and edited by multimedia artist and Cult Love co-founder, Natty Gray, on...

Where does one even start with Bonemagic? Established in 2013 by underground pillar and Tru noise mastermind, Matt Hex, ...
12/11/2025

Where does one even start with Bonemagic? Established in 2013 by underground pillar and Tru noise mastermind, Matt Hex, in rugged Stilwell, OK, Bonemagic is the embodiment of the raw, rural honesty of US Flyover Country. A uniquely Midsouthern project, the greater decade of Bonemagic has yielded a bewitching blend of industrial, gothic darksynth, and of course, teeth gritting harsh noise through a lens more akin to black magic ballet than any sort of "traditional" experimental music practice; irreplicable with no clear comparison. To understand Matt Hex and Bonemagic is to realize the indescribable spirit of a place as complicated and diverse as Oklahoma. A highly emotional, evocative essence that is jagged, unrestrained, even primitive at times; a mirror to the soul. Bonemagic epitomizes it all, in performance and in sound.

To speak in less ethereal terms and more explicitly express the sonic qualities of the project, Bonemagic offers sentimental outpourings through lofi screams buried in blown out 808s within a forest of witch house-esque synthesizers ranging from goth club, high BPM dance tracks to slower, intimate swan songs. Of course, these are broken up with soaring rockets of feedback, eardrum punishing rumbles, and rapidly shifting glitches of noise synthesizers, digital deconstruction, and no input mixing that provide punishing panoramas of top tier, pro-grade harsh noise. Bonemagic seamlessly hybridizes Matt Hex's upbringing of vast musical experiences and diverse mail-order-era media digestion.

Matt Hex the individual of course has many accolades and is a widely recognized veteran of the noise and experimental music scene of the last fifteen years. He has headlined and performed at numerous noise festivals and events across the country, was an organizer of Tulsa Noise Fest and Tarot Fest, and runs the popular noise-meme page, Noise Lawyer. He has seen releases through many high quality, well known labels such as Deathbed Tapes, Phage Tapes, and Damien Records, collaborating with the likes of artists such as The Rita, Astro, and Richie Culver. Other endeavors of his include Video Nasty, Licking Wounds (collaboration with Ritual Chair), Flora Morte (collaboration with Nathan Young), Gospel, Snub Nose, Mirrored Fatality, Stalking, and more. If you know noise, you know Matt Hex.

We feel privileged and honored to present this retrospective to the public; and newly mastered for tape by Gabriel Wheat, Matt Hex's mainstay and flagship project, Bonemagic, has never sounded so good! Limited run of 50 hand numbered cassettes, dubbed by LoDrum, curated and arranged by Natty Gray, and designed by George Christ.

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 ...
11/06/2025

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

Six years after the release of their self titled, Oklahoma's premier grindcore and or power violence group (and one of N...
10/21/2025

Six years after the release of their self titled, Oklahoma's premier grindcore and or power violence group (and one of Natty's favorite "local" bands), the hardcore soaked, face pummeling duo, WITHOUT EMPATHY (aka WOE aka W/OE), have finally returned to grace our ears with riffs and blasts of the utmost foul nature.

For those unfamiliar, W/OE are more or less the supreme collaging of all the best parts of the greater umbrella of extreme punk music. The blasts of blistering grind are there, the breakdowns of the heaviest beatdown bands slam you in the head, the conscious, pinpoint lyricism of the most pi**ed and frustrated power violence acts keeps you dialed in, and to top it all off, their music is littered with comical samples, highly technical playing, and vocal styles spanning pv-tough-guy-yells to goregrind pitch shifts. They're a perfect band.

LESSER BEINGS is an exceptional display of anger and the subtle complexities of extreme music performance while addressing ongoing social and political issues within the land of Oklahoma and the state fabricated plights endured by its people; it recognizes Oklahoma as a microcosmic reflection of the national chaos, corruption, and disarray that impacts the lives of individuals all over the world. LESSER BEINGS also sees an expansion of the sonic palate of WITHOUT EMPATHY. They're not necessarily dramatic changes (as WOE has always been a band willing to push the envelope and implement out-of-the-box writing and playing styles), however they are markedly distinguished from their self titled. Though a somewhat avant-garde inclination has always towed beneath the surface of WOE, we see it surfacing a little more plainly on LESSER BEINGS with increased fervent, noisy, freeplay-esque moments, as well as a very surprising use of droney clean vocals singing "Ring-Around-The-Rosies" accompanied by guest vocals and a toy keyboard outro.

Overall, WITHOUT EMPATHY once again delivers, without single fault, an exceptional piece of aggressive. heavy music. Their capacity to aggregate and amalgamate so many stylistic tropes of extreme punk music so succinctly and masterfully is, as usual, the highlight of their songwriting and the band's greatest strength. To top it all off, their highly regionalized and recognizable Oklahoma flare provides an additional degree of uniqueness that sets them aside from the sea of grind and pv bands so widely proliferated in our day and age. A delicious return from arguably the Midsouth's best, a contender for heavy music's album of the year.

Limited run of 50 hand numbered cassettes.

https://cultlovesoundtapes.bandcamp.com/album/lesser-beings

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