Urbsounds[ / ]
Urbanfailure plays his liveact at K. A. L. stage at Brutal Assault festival.
Urbanfailure is the solo turn of Michal Lichy, the Slovak electronica genius who last showed up around here on the four-way split Instant Satisfunction in 2012, though we have heard him on team-ups with Jamka, RBNX, and The Gross. His new album is Radical Rest (URBSOUNDS URB042), pressed in red vinyl and issued with a cover drawing depicting a grey metropolitan Hell of some sort, either tower blocks multiplying wildly and growing in impossible dimensions, or the interior of a horrible factory. As ever, Urbanfailure exhibits considerable skill with very simple means – sequencers, beat-boxes and electronic noise all colliding to producing an unsettling, grim form of techno that is deliberately intended to evoke unpleasant science-fiction destinies for mankind; in this instance the movie Tetsuo The Iron Man is referenced (in the press notes, at any rate), and there’s even one track which comes right out with it and calls itself ‘Dystopian Future’.
Michal Lichy has been making this stern-faced noise since the late 1990s, and we are reminded by the label that his creative outburst coincides almost exactly with the collapse of Communism and subsequent upheavals in Eastern Europe, when Czechoslovakia split into two separate countries. Well, things still aren’t very settled evidently, as the restless music of Urbanfailure continues to testify. Might be interesting to compare this LP with some of the recent outpourings from Poland’s Zoharum label, although there aren’t that many Zoharum releases making such aggressive use of beats as Michal, with the possible exception of Genetic Transmission’s industrial blat (which is mostly reissues anyway). While not excessively noisy, Radical Rest is still a pretty “punishing” listen…I’m already feeling pretty hammered after just 30 mins of listening, and the tight, airless nature of his sequenced sounds is starting to hem me in. At the same time, there’s still a lot of chaotic energy in play, which adds to the general sense of uncertainty. From 2nd November 2018.
Reviewed by Ed Pinsent for The Sound Projector. Thanks! Original review is here.
with great company
Inushini
Wipeout
Dj Zoologist
HC Tritt zurück
Gabber Bauch
Fall Into Dry Lungs
Assimilatah
Relaly Mosh
Rasputin
Slovenský producent Dead Janitor získal za jedenáct let svého působení na scéně i mezinárodní uznání a na novém albu Medusa přináší zcela vlastní originální zvuk. Výsledkem soudobé IDM elektroniky mixované s industriální špínou a syrovostí je zvukově pestré album, které přináší temné, minimalistické i taneční okamžiky. Dead Janitor debutoval v roce 2008 DIY albem The Boring Structure, poté léta vydával na slovenském labelu Exitab, jedné z nejzajímavějších značek na poli tamního soudobého elektronického experimentu. Album Medusa pak vychází u neméně zajímavého slovenského labelu Urbsounds.
IDM, dark ambient, hypnotické techno, industrial. To vše dokáže Medusa zpracovat do proměnlivých a neustále se rozvíjejících zvukových okamžiků. Dead Janitor ale nemá potřebu opisovat stylotvorné slovníky. Základy tracků tvoří vlastními elektronickými vzorci a samply. Album tak nabízí rytmické plochy, čistě elektronicky tepající okamžiky i cákance, kde se zvuk postupně rozpadá do nejmenších atomů. Stejně tak i okamžiky, kde kovově ostrá rytmika vyvolává až rituálně tranceové nálady. Díky dobré aranži i zvuku se přitom všechna ta pestrost se na albu přelévá zcela přirozeně a bez zádrhelů.
Medusa je zatím nejsyrovější a nejvíce experimentující Dead Janitorovo dílo. To ale neznamená, že předchozí – více elektronicky zvuková – tvorba zaostává. Naopak. Ostatně, slovenský producent zaujal i poměrně velkou a etablovanou polskou scénu, když jeho předchozí album – Proximity z roku 2016 – vyšlo u ceněného labelu Galeria Szara Records. Vloni ho ještě doplnilo album remixů od tvůrců jako jsou Ink Midget či Stroon.
Dead Janitor kráčí vpřed a jeho releasy neustále ukazují, kolik různých poloh soudobá experimentální elektronika umí. Slovenský producent tak už léta tvoří sci-fi pro milovníky brouzdání v nekonečném vesmíru zvuků, samplů a jejich struktur. Zvukový romanopisec, jehož knihy mají zatím pořád ten správně napínavý obsah, který dokáže vtáhnout do děje a nepustit do posledního tónu.
Reviewed by Richard Kutěj for Fullmoon.cz
Keeping Pan Sonic firmly in mind (and in recognition that those operations were long-closed before Vainio left us) is this brief blast of dread-inducing drone techno, responsible for which is Jamka aka Slovakians Monika Subrtova and Daniel Kordik, who have issued a steady trickle of such artisan efforts in the last decade and a half.
Tracks like ‘Patemp’ and ‘Anazmo’… well, this whole album… makes liberal use of panic-inducing drones and dub-flavoured attack formations of sinewed and bludgeoning beats; making a virtuous show of punishing discipline; exhibiting fewer of the excesses of distortion and over-production than those Jamka model themselves on – your Regises and Techno Animals – not becoming over-repetitive, though breaking no rules either. This is ‘clean’ techno for clubs where the only hint of danger is the smoke they pump in to make punters thirsty, but it’s ideal for those who prefer home-listening to the slap of recognition that one is at least a decade older than every other tight-assed white-boy doing the dancefloor indie-shuffle.
Jamka`s Inter Alia LP reviewed by Stuart Marshall for The SoundProjector. Thanks!!!
![Jamka – Inter Alia | [ / ] no. 31 (LP white vinyl )](https://i0.wp.com/urbsounds.sk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/jamka-inter-alia-front-1.jpg?fit=640%2C640&ssl=1)
London-based duo Jamka return with Inter Alia, the latest evidence of their patient, intimate relationship with their analogue machines. From the start there’s a sense of event – we encounter clear, interlaced electronic textures, powerful analogue drones and well-placed beats.
Digital download card is included, you will receive LP on white vinyl and digital download.
Venta Protesix is “at it” again, unleashing 18 types of obnoxious digital malarkey from his lone laptop causing a vile stink all the way across Europe from his home base in Salerno…Endless Incapacitating Discomfort (URBSOUNDS URB041) is released on Urbsounds, as was the last emission of juvenile swill Sickening Digital Rainbows in 2018. Have to admit that this Italian solitary player of the “pink oboe” is making some progress with his “thematic” concerns this time though, since not every single track refers directly to his predilection for self-abuse or his enormous internet porn collection, with some track titles alluding to all forms of sorrow ranging from melancholic ennui to existential despair. Plus, there’s a lot more variety in the music – dynamics, tempo and even suggestions of melody are now considered fair game to be whirled into the Venta casserole like so much bright red chili sauce mixed into the porridge.
While those listeners who have the “hots” for repulsive violent noise won’t be at all disappointed when they send away for this release (it may arrive in a plain brown wrapper), I’d like to think that the open-minded electro-acoustic buffs would also find some way into this streaming flow of hot lava, mainly by dint of Venta’s processing and filtering skills, which are clearly improving – I guess all that “practising by himself” has toughened his fingers and improved his manual dexterity. Exciting pumping action, greasy fluid sounds, soapsuds on your copper pipes…cartoon-manga version of Merzbow, you bet…harsh noise wall for the serial texters on the bus listening to speedcore doom-ragga who need something else to do with their hands while they’re yapping to their pet gerbils back home.
Cover art is pretty bonkers too, like Black Metal logos fed through a trojan-carrying application that infects your machine and gives you a dose of influenza with a single click of the mouse.
Review was written by Ed Pinsent aka The Sound Projector. Thanks!!!
Many thanks to Italo Belladonna for sending this…from 27th November 2018.
![Venta Protesix – Endless Incapacitating Discomfort | [ / ] no. 41](https://i0.wp.com/urbsounds.sk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Endless-Incapacitating-Discomfort_cover2.jpg?fit=640%2C576&ssl=1)
6 panel digipack and download.
Urbanfailure and Kragrowargkomn play live at IFEM 2019 for more info please visit official festival page.
Experimental Studio Bratislava presents IMAGO SONORIS | Lost Memories
BONSAI GARDEN: Christian Callon | Differen Music :: Milan Adamčiak | Opak je pravdou :: Brian May (Queen) | Who Wants to Live Forever :: John Cage | 4.33 pre Adamčiaka :: Pink Floyd | Another Brick In The Wall : Urbanfailure + Kragrowargkomn | The Brick Wall :: Bob Dylan | Blowin’ in the Wind :: Laco Kerata | Daj mi Salami :: Miro Bázlik | Hudba zomiera v človeku posledná :: Miloš Boďa & Juraj Ďuriš | Portrait :: Peter Zákuťanský | Stratené pamäti |Lujza Ďurišová – violoncello, Tomáš Baľak – keyboard :: Robo Roth – voice
where: A4 – Associations for Contemporary Culture
Karpatská 2, 811 05 Bratislava, Slovakia
The electronics of the Slovakian Michal Lichý, aka Urbanfailure, is roady, cybernetic and abstract. An artist working on the scene from the end of the nineties. He produces a rapid series of raw rhythms and multiform sequences, sounds made possible thanks to the use of tools such as synthesizers, drum machines and effects. The set-up gives life to a post apocalyptic setting, full of intricate noises and brutalist caesura. Radical Rest proves the commitment and the musical inclination of this artist, a member of the Urbsounds Collective who is also active in the organising crew of the Vermin party. The set clearly originates from the live performance.
The deconstruction of noise in real time seems to be a synthesis of the sound played directly, without frills and conceptualisms. Even if the approach seems to be labyrinthine, moving and industrial. Already in the first track “Caught” the radicality of the caesura is clear and shows the difficulties that post-Soviet musicians had to face. When they had to rush to illustrate the immediacy of the social turmoil taking place in their time. In “Spread Exploded” the development is even more aggressive and muscular – the bassline throbs. Similarly, in “Amn T_kn0l0GY”, Lichý doesn’t run too far from nineties styles and “Dystopian Future” shows a machinic approach, free of compromises.
Under the influences of techno, punk, industrial and noise, the do it yourself style is evident. An approach similar to a gigantic blender which dissolves the experiences from over the Iron Curtain and then shakes them with rough and synthetic energy. But Urbanfailure is never banal and Lichý’s sound art is the original elaboration of all these different suggestions. Ones that take the shape of rhythmical weaves and hypnotic passages, drones and disturbing noise hooks. Radical Rest hovers on the edge between experimentation and a radical dance practice, but its spontaneous energy, together with an unconventional taste, makes this project a great example of how subcultures can spread over all latitudes. It would be hard to use some analytic and/or stylistic decoding procedure to these registrations, and overall we think this wouldn’t even be that interesting.
Radical Rest was reviewed by Neural.it
![Urbanfailure - Radical Rest | [ / ] no. 42 (Red vinyl)](https://i0.wp.com/urbsounds.sk/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/RR_lp_vonkajsi_predny_-e1537432831766.jpg?fit=640%2C640&ssl=1)
limited edition of 292 transparent red vinyl LP.
Digital download code is included.
Braňo Findrik is the man behind Dead Janitor and so far he has released his music through digital channels. ‘Medusa’ is his first LP and my introduction into his sound world. Dead Janitor is a man of electronic music, taking his inspiration from Aphex Twin and Autechre. I am no fan of Autechre, I must admit. Their music leaves me entirely cold. Lots of software treatments over some stutter beats. It is something I hear also in the music of Dead Janitor. There are several rhythms at work in the same place, and on top of that, there is a whole range of digital and analogue sounds that come along. It is not always without melody, which is nice. Sometimes the music very much fucked up, in neck breaking speed (in ‘Mandatory’ for instance); for me, things worked best if it all a bit more spaced out, such as in ‘Mass’.
Maybe I just can handle sonic overload that easily? Especially when it has so many different rhythms at the same time. Tracks are kept concise and to the point, often exploring a few things but not overstepping it, with the sudden introduction of new elements. I enjoyed most of this; especially, as said, when he keeps things a lot simpler. I am not sure what he wants with this music. It doesn’t seem to be aiming at the dance floor, but perhaps it does? Maybe this is partly listening to music and partly crazy dance music. It is not entirely my cup of tea, yet I feel it is all made with some great passion for odd time signatures and complex sound structures, of course, topped with fine production quality.
Review by Frans de Waard for VitalWeekly issue 1185
![Dead Janitor - Medusa | [ / ] no. 45](https://i0.wp.com/urbsounds.sk/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/medusa_cover.jpg?fit=640%2C640&ssl=1)
You can order your vinyl now! Vinyl edition is limited to 111 pcs. on black vinyl. All vinyls contains download code.