Smartpunk Records' power pop darlings Virginity have released their new EP "Fidelity Castro" as a follow-up to their 2024 LP "Bad Jazz" - available to purchase here. The EP is a collection of six dynamic tracks that went from being outcasts on the album tracklist to star songs in their own right.
Listen below.
The band has received critical acclaim from the rock scene's top tastemakers, including New Noise Magazine, Brooklyn Vegan, Audiotree, and more. As fan favorites at Smartpunk's SXSW showcase and Florida's beloved FEST, Virginity have cultivated a core fanbase who are foaming at the mouth for these new tracks.
Speaking about the new EP, Virginity says, "Fidelity Castro started out being a way to just throw a couple of tunes out that had been sitting on the back burner for a while. As we assembled those, we kept returning to the live recordings we’d done in Jordan’s living room when we first started writing for Bad Jazz and felt like a couple of songs had so much life in them that we had to send them out into the world with our new recordings. We’ve also got a Shins tune on here because we’re just fans of that band and that record (Chutes Too Narrow) in particular. That was just something fun to do and a challenge, to make it our own a little. Lastly, we’ve got Love Exists, which is a song so incredibly void of any cynicism (basically an idea that’s nonexistent in our catalog) that we weren’t sure what to do with it. Should we rerecord it, make it a full band affair, or perhaps make it a proper piano ballad or something? Ultimately, we decided the magic was already there and that it should just be put out as is. The arc of this band has been about progressively getting more and more authentic. In a way, Fidelity is our most authentic release yet. There’s a real “scars and all” approach to it. We’re not being precious about any of it and, for now, that’s really inspiring and exciting for us. We really believe that some of these songs are some of the best we have to offer, and we’re so proud of this little collection."
ABOUT VIRGINITY
Virginity’s “Fidelity Castro EP” was originally supposed to be a way to release the leftover scraps from the Bad Jazz recording sessions, but as the band continued to finesse the recordings, the EP morphed into something entirely different. It took on a life of its own, and taught the band it can operate more loosely than it ever has before.
Featuring 5 original tracks and a cover of one of their favorite Shins tunes, the EP shows the band finishing three partially developed concepts from the Bad Jazz sessions as well as 3 demos of songs that never made it to the studio, but showed just as much promise as anything that landed on the album. And while the basic tracks of the demos were recorded live and raw, they show another side of the band’s abilities and yearning to experiment with lo-fi production (a la a recent obsession with Guided By Voices) and attempt to not overthink something that already rocks ass.
ABOUT SMARTPUNK RECORDS:
Smartpunk has been a recognizable name in the scene for a long time (Remember that sponsored Warped Tour stage?!). After exchanging several hands and countless ideas of what it could and should be, they decided to start a record label in 2016 with the main idea of focusing solely on reissuing records that have been out of print or never on vinyl. After all, they're a label of vinyl dorks themselves! After releasing Set Your Goals' Mutiny and Gameface's Good, they started to venture into signing newer bands. They actively balance in between many worlds — putting out amazing music from friends and bands that rock, reissuing older titles, and partnering with other incredible labels in our scene and doing exclusive color variants of their releases.
"Since forming the record label, Smartpunk Records has released timeless albums such as Less Than Jake's Anthem, Nominee's Lowlife, RIVALS' Sad Looks Pretty on Me, Virginity's POPMORTEM, and melodic skate punkers The Swellers' My Everest.