Cate Hukle (Kallai) on Turning a Bleak Year Into 'We Are Forever' | The J-Card Podcast

Cate Hukle makes darkgaze music in Portland, OR, under the name Kallai. Last year Cate released an album called We Are Forever, inspired by the aftermath of a tumultuous election and built around a mythic framework borrowed from a novel that gave the band its name.In our convo, we get into how that record came together and what the album’s title is actually referencing (hint: it has to do with a certain Vampire Slayer). Cate’s mixtape is broken up into three couplets of tunes, including two rare tracks harkening back to 90s Lawrence, Kansas.More on IG:@kallai.pdx https://www.instagram.com/kallai.pdxRue Defense Tape Club x GetMusic Collaboration Tape Music Submissions (NOW OPEN):While our regular quarterly subscriber-only cassette compilation for September is almost ready to go, we’ve partnered with GetMusic to bring our subscribers a special BONUS tape. Now’s a great time to become a paid subscriber, and it’s also a great time for any artists out there to submit their own music to us via this dedicated GetMusic submissions form.GetMusic is a music discovery and promotion service. Artists can provide Bandcamp download codes of their work for music fans to discover and add to their collections. You can find releases on there from J-Card Podcast host Alexei Shishkin and Rue Defense founder Graham W. Bell. Artists can sign up here, the first upload is free.The J-Card is presented by Rue Defense Tape Club, a quarterly, mail-order cassette compilation and DIY audio project. Each episode is part music discovery, part oral history, part hangout show. We ask artists, musicians, filmmakers, and other music-minded folks to build us their own personal mixtape and talk about the moments and memories that inspired it.New episodes drop here and wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for watching, and if you liked this one, share it with a friend who also might.Created by Alexei ShishkinAssociate Producer: Alivia StonierBooking: Jamie Halliday📬 Subscribe:Subscribe now📲 Follow us: IG: https://www.instagram.com/ruedefense Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/tapeclub.substack.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ruedefenseX: https://x.com/ruedefenseBandcamp: https://ruedefense.bandcamp.comTikTok: https://tiktok.com/@tapeclubLinktree: https://linktr.ee/ruedefense🤝 Support / Sponsorship: https://forms.gle/8L4o4yLvX5fQnpAXA 🎶 Submit Music: https://forms.gle/Mc7En6K8Tb2BbgxJA 📩 Contact: [email protected]⏱️ Chapters:00:00 - Intro to Cate Hukle01:08 - Writing We Are Forever05:08 - The Album’s Mythic Story07:46 - Naming It After Buffy10:09 - Revisiting We Are Forever12:45 - The Remix Album Process15:06 - Feedback Inside the Band20:22 - The Mixtape21:32 - “Missile Command” by Shallow25:19 - “Red and Blue” by Free Verse27:38 - “What a Life” by Juliana Hatfield32:01 - “The Reason Why” by Ladytron36:40 - “Ugly IRL” by Vyva Melinkolya39:58 - “Evaporate” by AA Williams45:30 - Honorable Mentions47:09 - Game: Showdown53:47 - Plugs & Outro This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tapeclub.substack.com/subscribe