The Occurrence - Category: Music

Cocofunka call their new album Chúcaro, or “wild” in English. Twelve untamed tracks embrace Costa Rica’s native sounds of soca – a rhythmic calypso style – along with four-on-the-floor post-punk and ’80s pop. The album’s eponymous...

O Canada! To narrow down the massive number of gifted artists from the North American nation to just five is daunting. From the prog-fathers Rush to hip-hop heartthrob Drake, to the legendary Neil Young and...

The allure of music is universal, as we’ve witnessed with our Occur Goes Global series. Also universal? Older generations decrying their descendants’ art as vulgar rubbish. The Cameroon Tribune reported on elder culturists in the...

"Fear not the future, weep not for the past." goes a Khmer proverb. It’s a motto widely adopted by today’s Cambodians, who are reaffirming their identities and embracing the sounds that shaped their history. During...

An African nation in upheaval, Burundi has birthed some of the most passionate protest music in the world. Musicians, artists and others opposed to the tyrannical rule of President Pierre Nkurunziza write their stories in...

The BBC paints a grim picture of Burkina Faso: “A poor country even by West African standards, landlocked Burkina Faso has suffered from recurring droughts and military coups.” Furthermore, its musical history is just beginning...

A crossroads of Slavic, Turkish and ancient Greek cultures, this European country of 7 million revels in Eastern Orthodox Christian traditions and earthy instrumentation. Bagpipes known as gaidas entrance as fire dancers and masked “mummers”...

Are you the kind to make New Year’s resolutions? We are, and since this is a music forum, we’re sharing with you our aural ambitions and goals for 2016. Many of them mirror ours for...