JK Flesh explained

JK Flesh
Origin:Birmingham, England, UK
Years Active:2012 - present
Label:Avalanche Recordings
Electric Deluxe
Hospital Productions
Downwards Records
Associated Acts:Techno Animal, Zonal, Council Estate Electronics, The Sidewinder, Solaris, Krackhead
Website:Official website
Current Members:Justin Broadrick

JK Flesh is a moniker of English musician Justin Broadrick employed for his solo work within electronic music.[1] Broadrick's usage of the title spans back to his work in the 1990s with Kevin Martin in Techno Animal, but he first released a solo studio album as JK Flesh in 2012.[2] Unlike Broadrick's most well-known projects, Godflesh and Jesu, his work as JK Flesh is electronic and (apart from Posthuman) lacks metal riffs.[3] Over the years, the project has shifted into a more minimal and dub sound while retaining its industrial influences.

As JK Flesh, Broadrick has released four studio albums, five EPs, a split album with Prurient, and a number of remixes.[4]

History

Background

In the early 1990s, Justin Broadrick became interested in producing hip hop and drum and bass music. While this influence is felt in some of his more prominent releases, like in Godflesh's 1991 EP Slavestate and 1992 album Pure,[5] Broadrick fully explored these genres privately in a solo capacity or incorporated the work into his collaborative projects such as Techno Animal with Kevin Martin. A few of these experiments saw release within various compilation albums, others such as his short lived projects Tech-Level 2 and Youpho saw releases on British jungle label Hardleaders. Broadrick himself briefly ran a minimal techno label in the late 90s called Lo Fibre through which he released EPs of his projects Solaris B.C. with Diarmuid Dalton and The Sidewinder with Martin. A portion of this material was rereleased compiled under the name The Lo Fibre Companion (1998) on Invisible Records. Broadrick and Dalton would later play together in Jesu and release three albums together as Council Estate Electronics, an analog synthesizer project inspired by Shard End where they grew up in.[6] [7]

Solo releases

In 2009 Broadrick compiled some of the JK Flesh tracks he created from 1997 to 1999 in an album named From Hell released under the title Krackhead, but it wasn't until 2012 that he fully embarked on the project.[8] In an interview, Broadrick estimated around 17,000 electronic tracks that had created between 1990 and 2012 and were sitting in his archives.[9] Regarding JK Flesh's inception, Broadrick said:

JK Flesh was also conceived as the antithesis of Broadrick's more melodically driven electronica project Pale Sketcher, with JK Flesh constituting "the angry, hateful, disenchanted side of [...] electronic beat-driven, bass-driven music". It is also an "electronic continuation" of Greymachine (his project with Aaron Turner from the band Isis), a "monolith of nasty, bloated sounding shit".[10]

As a project for Broadrick to fully explore niche areas of electronic and dub music, JK Flesh eschews many conventions that he and his listeners had become used to. The project's debut album, Posthuman (2012), still features heavily downtuned guitars, thick distortion, and a bleak mood–aspects all common in Broadrick's other music–but the beats are less industrial and more dance- and techno-oriented.[11] The heavy guitars ultimately weren't his "long term [...] vision for [the] project" though, and were instead added based on the label's suggestion.

JK Flesh's following releases ventured further into extreme distortion and drum and bass with the Nothing Is Free EP (2015) and the second album, Rise Above (2016).[12] The EPs Exit Stance (2017) and PI04 (2018) adopted a more purely techno sound.[13] Following another EP in 2018 titled Wasplike,[14] JK Flesh's third studio album, New Horizon, was released on 28 September 2018.[15]

Influences

Broadrick's electronic work was informed by the early rave parties he attended in the early 90s seeing Jeff Mills, Robert Hood, Plastikman and Aphex Twin as well as his friendship with fellow Brummie Karl O'Connor better known as Regis, the head of Downwards Records. Broadrick also went on to call Dillinja his "favorite producer of filthy bass and cutting breakbeats, absolutely direct, textures unlike any, the ultimate DnB producer".[16] Broadrick has also credited Moritz von Oswald's dub techno projects Basic Channel and Maurizio as well as his record label Chain Reaction as a main influence on JK Flesh.[17]

JK Flesh's sound has also been compared to Andy Stott and Ancient Methods.

Discography

Sources:[18]

Studio albums

EPs

Remix albums

Collaboration albums

Split releases

Singles

Other

Remixes

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Dicker. Holly. Resident Advisor JK Flesh biography. Resident Advisor. November 29, 2017.
  2. Web site: JK Flesh at Bandcamp. Bandcamp. November 29, 2017.
  3. Web site: Raggett. Ned. Songs of the 'Flesh – The Strange World of... Justin Broadrick. The Quietus. November 29, 2017.
  4. Web site: JK Flesh at Discogs. Discogs. November 29, 2017.
  5. Web site: Raggett. Ned. Godflesh – Pure. AllMusic. November 30, 2017.
  6. Web site: Council Estate Electronics. Council Estate Electronics.
  7. Web site: Arktika, by COUNCIL ESTATE ELECTRONICS. GLACIAL MOVEMENTS.
  8. From Hell . digital liner notes . Krackhead . 2009 . 12 June 2018 . . AREC013.
  9. Broadrick . Justin . Justin Broadrick . Holly Dicker . EX.406 Justin Broadrick – Kicking against the pricks with the Birmingham prodigy . . 21 April 2018 . 17 May 2018.
  10. Web site: Dicker. Holly. Playing Favourites: Justin Broadrick. Resident Advisor. 19 February 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180612140911/https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/1567. 12 June 2018. live. dmy-all.
  11. Web site: Kennedy. Joe. JK Flesh, Posthuman. The Quietus. November 29, 2017.
  12. Web site: Farrar. Justin. JK Flesh – Rise Above. Resident Advisor. November 29, 2017.
  13. Web site: Ryce. Andrew. JK Flesh – Exit Stance. Resident Advisor. December 12, 2017.
  14. Web site: Farrar . Justin . JK Flesh – Wasplike EP . . 26 June 2018.
  15. Web site: Speedy J's Electric Deluxe Announces JK Flesh Album, 'New Horizon' . . 25 June 2018 . 26 June 2018.
  16. Web site: NE116: Justin Broadrick Makes Us a Mix of Twisted Drum & Bass Tracks . Self-titledmag.com . 12 October 2018.
  17. Biazzetti . Claudio . The Techno Dub According to JK Flesh . Italian. . 26 July 2018 . 29 September 2018.
  18. Web site: JK Flesh at SoundCloud . SoundCloud. November 29, 2017.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "JK Flesh".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.