Urbanfailure is a solo project of Michal Lichy. The style of Urbanfailure is ultra-abstract sound-art consisting of microsounds and discreet rhythm textures. Despite the fact that this isn’t meant to be catchy, there are something quite cool about the rhythmic structures of Urbanfailure. Very cold but also hypnotizing thanks to the complex pallet of strange noises coming in and out during playtime.
Live noise deconstruction while structure construction, synthesis of feelings and realization where concept is also a way to use sound as opinion.
Urbanfailure is a one man project… He started to explore electronic sound fields in 1996 via computer and Impulse Tracker in 1997 he recorded his first tape called ‘Try It’. As he started to play live he moved from computer based setup to HW. Actual setup is based on synths, drum machine and pedals.
Member of Slovakian Urbsounds Collective and Vermin party crew.
The annual list of experimental, cutting-edge, avant-garde, underground and outsider albums, live recordings, EPs, tapes and net releases from Slovakia’s vital and diverse music scene: let yourself inspire by the rich selection of 2016 records.
This list was compiled by Slavo Krekovic and it is most probably not complete. If you happen to know about anything that should be added, let us know at redakcia(at)34.sk.
An extreme performance project, wild electronic rhythms, eccentric vocals. Radical performance of the Pink Cowboys who are in fact a disguised part of well-known team Urbsounds (combination of the projects urbanfailure and rbnx ) can be only accompanied by the original authors’ statement: “Two corpses of cowboys return to life for a few minutes in order to stroke their sheep in a bright country style with pink scars of the Slovak culture.”
Urbsounds Collective (The mutant electronic offspring of Bratislava, Slovakia’s punk scene) was established in 2001 as the outcome of friendship, common interests, shared views and love for music. Since then it has become a platform for exchanging experience and supporting creative and unusual electronic and media events, distributing DIY materials, organizing experimental electronic music events and releasing mostly CD-r recordings. It played their first concert in November 2001 at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava. From that time on they have been performing at various galleries, clubs, squats and festivals [Digitopia/Slovakia, Multiplace/Slovakia, Next/Slovakia, Alternativa/Czech Republic, Electric Rain/Ireland, Resistance Festival/Great Britain, RX-TX/Slovenia, Grim Electronicitt_/France, Firmanent/Poland] in Slovakia as well as abroad [Austria, Germany, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Italy, France, Great Britain and Ireland].
Jamka is an electronic music project set up by Monika Subrtova and Daniel Kordik, who first met as philosophy students in Slovakia. After playing in various hardcore and punk bands, Kordik had gradually become more interested in the idea of making musicwith electronic devices, and when Subrtova began to share his enthusiasm for synthetic sounds and misleading compositions, they decided to explore this territory together.
Jamka played their first gig in autumn 2001 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava. Using a sequencer and a sampler, they generated raw-sounding rhythms and structures. In the same year, together with RBNX and Urbanfailure, they released their first common CDr/tape, Urb Sound Systems, and founded the Slovakian Urbsounds Collective.
Jamka now reside in London, where they have established themselves as part of the local experimental scene. Using synthesizers, sequencers, samplers and various FX boxes, they touch on the darker side of techno, industrial and noise music, approaching it in their own uncompromising way. Their music is a whirlwind of colliding rhythms and fractured structures, punctuated throughout with hard-hitting sounds.
Frutti di mare was an experimental audiovisual group which utilized different concepts of playing from 2007 to 2012. Production of this group dealt with interaction between text, voice, instrumental part and real-time visual projection. Visuals and live performance of the musicians formed an interactive experience. Every edition of the FDM project follows different phenomenon. Combinations of musicians also changed from one FDM project to another. Performers from FDM are members of contemporary improvised music scene – mainly from Slovakia, but later also from other Central European countries.
The author of FDM concept and artistic leader was composer and improviser Miro Tóth.
