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Justin K. Broadrick is a name that needs no introduction. However, his litany of side projects do. Here, we’re met with his latest, Exit Electronics.
The sounds of Exit Electronics aren’t exactly unprecedented. There’s the long-standing power electronics/drone/ambient project Final that dates all the way back to the 80s. His drum ‘n’ bass cross industrial JK Flesh. The hip hop electronica of Techno Animal. The brooding synth worship of Council Estate Electronics. Evidently, there are many layers to Broadrick beyond his mainstays of Godflesh and Jesu.
While the precedents are many, that doesn’t mean Exit Electronics is in any way derivative of the aforementioned outfits. Exit Electronics stands its ground by being the meaner, gnarlier and harsher cousin.
It’s fair to call this work trash compactor electronics. Across 4 long form tracks, ‘Every Shade of Grey’ whips, cracks and produces a never-ending wash of static that lingers like the ominous clouds over a dilapidated British estate building.
There are rhythmic qualities fused within these harsh and occasionally repetitive structures. Track 1, the title track, revels in its persistent crunch and crash, breaking only to allow space for screams to escape through its junkyard rhythms. The subsequent track slowing down the pace to a crawl, like the slow bashing of a trash can that then gets processed into oblivion.
Accompanying the title track is a promotional video by an artist under the alias of Skintape.
Moving through the tracks, the feeling of despondence becomes more pronounced. Tracks 3 & 4 titled ‘Every Shade of Truth’ and ‘Every Shade of Lies’ respectively, drive home the sense of distrust of modern institutions. The ‘cog in the wheel’, ‘slave to the state’ kinds of assertions explored by industrial pioneers such as Throbbing Gristle. However, this deep-rooted distrust for the modern world has an updated sonic presentation, expressed with the rawest filthstep & dirt electronics exterior.
There’s a constant feeling through ‘Every Shade of Grey’ that this album plays like a piece of factory equipment that is always running over capacity. Incessant mechanical squeals and persistent danger run through the greasy chambers of this hazardous OH&S tragedy in the making. The haze and muck it produces is so thick, the trip-step beats and rhythmic infusion feel like a mirage that results from the ingestion of too many fumes at your unsafe factory job.
Make no mistake, the constant dread and static haze that emanate through this record is executed fairly well, having the class of Broadrick’s signature production skills offering a little ray of figurative light over the album.
‘Every Shade of Grey’ delivers a cacophony of trip-step trash compactor electronics mired in a deep-rooted sense of distrust for the failing institutions of the modern world. This is a proper hit of despondence from the mind of Justin Broadrick.
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