Urbsounds’Unpolished fidelity – various artists

The Bratislava DIY collective celebrates its twentieth anniversary with new, unheard music on vinyl. The world has changed a lot since the beginning of the millennium. However, Urbsounds still go for noisy and dirty experimental electronics, from which you can feel the spirit of abandoned industrial spaces and punk squats. They commemorate their 20th anniversary with ten tracks created especially for the Unpolished fidelity compilation. It’s an abstract, raw, aggressive statement, attempting to tame their energy on record. It’s music that takes no prisoners. Urbsounds have never forgotten their punk past, carrying this as the main line throughout their twenty years. 

The DIY approach to making and releasing music and organizing parties remained. Synths and tone generators replaced punk guitars. It is a spontaneous, immediate piece built on interaction with hardware. Capturing the moment of jamming on sound modules, effects, and other boxes is more important than composition and studio procedures. It’s music that will never be popular. It’s music for the faithful, for the community. 

Urbsounds have been maintaining it for twenty years, but they are open to new people – both listeners and creators. Urbsounds also released foreign musicians, but on LP Unpolished Fidelity, you will find their hardcore, only Slovak music. 

Tracks are by the founders of the collective – Urbanfailure and RBNX. Ex-Jamka Daniel Kordík and Monika Šubrtová are today respected soloists known internationally. Here we find samples of their current sound, i.e., modular worlds and dystopian, slow techno. It’s not just noise here. On Unpolished Fidelity, you can hear IDM (NDS), hypnotic techno (Makkatu), deep psychedelic dives (Vŕtačky po desáté hodine), industrial (Dead Janitor), and tekno (Maraki). Music never sounds the same, and you can always find something new in it. It’s music that must be listened to loud, on noisy equipment. 

Adam Matej, a generation younger creator of electronic music performing as DJ GÄP, took care of the Unpolished Fidelity master. 

Boris Vitázek, a renowned new media artist, designed the cover art and design. 

Unpolished Fidelity releases on LP (marbled green limited to 100pcs and black limited to 100pcs.) and digital on August 20, 2022. The release party will be on the same day in Bratislava’s A4.