Violetshaped – The Remixes Part 2: Keith Fullerton Whitman, JK Flesh, Grischa Lichtenberger [Violet Poison]

Violetshaped have got it spot on with the latest remix plate. The collaborative pairing of Shapednoise and Violet Poison have only been around for about 12 months, and may only boast a self-titled LP and a last year’s The Great Mother Down The Stairs 12″as the only original catalogue for the group, but the impact of these releases was justifiably stunning.

Last month brought us the first remix record from the LP, featuring Roly Porter, Kangding Ray and Vatican Shadow aka Prurient, via whose Hospital Records imprint Shapednoise released The Day of Revenge on cassette. A pretty hefty lineup reflecting Violetshaped’s standing in a scene where industrial and noise increasingly crossover in to techno.

Just released comes The Remixes Part 2, and even a less predictable but even more incredible sounding plate. Modern-day musique concrete master Keith Fullerton Whitman and the ever-good JK Flesh are guaranteed to be good in everything they touch, and made this record buy-on-site. Something in the way that Violetshaped have structured or presented their work has brought out the best in both these artists, but it was Grischa Lichtenberg – who’s relatively unknown to us – who properly surprised us by stepping up with the most interesting remix on there.

Who knows what to expect from a Keith Fullerton Whitman remix? With a live show absd around him building links and connections that make sound possible, Whitman is equally electrical engineer as much as composer. We’d say more so, but the fact is that his creations are so intriguing and addictive that it wouldn’t be right to put the focus on his component knowledge. His remix of ‘Anaesthesia‘ is a 13-minute stuttering session over a consistent base of washed grey-noise waves. Unpredictable and rolling all in one, there’s really nothing more we would’ve wanted from the track.

Conversely, JK Flesh takes a cinematic approach to his reworking of ‘cX310’ – battering out the horror soundtrack synths that are given an extra-edge to work over from live jungle drums, stretched out slightly themselves to fit the dark and grainy feel over the recording.

Maybe it’s current tastes, or just what we needed to close off the record, but Grischa Lichtenberg taking on ‘Spectral Nightdrive’ is a total revamping of styles that caught us off guard. Working with a track that was initially not a stand-out from the LP, Lichtenberg keeps ghosts and presence of the original elements, but is quite brazen about how he chops them up and edits them in front of you. The six-minutes throw a lot of curve balls but doesn’t drop a single bad idea or weak structured moment. Really need to hear more from this guy.

In some ways the quality of the remixes may be reflective of how easily Shapednoise and Violet Poison have been able to work together – opening up individual ideas and taking on collaboration until it gets close to perfect. It may just be that their sounds and building blocks are exactly what these artists needed to experiment with. Either way, all involved in this record deserve big-ups, massive plate.

Press release below, but just before that you can check the Keith Fullerton Whitman remix of ‘Anasthesia.’

via Violet Poison (label)
Violetshaped is a collaboration between the enigmatic Violet Poison and Berlin-based artist Shapednoise.

“Violetshaped Remixes Part 2” is the second of a remixes series divided into several parts. This time round they appoint Keith Fullerton Whitman, JK Flesh and Grischa Lichtenberger for remixes of their eponymous debut album tracks. The KFW recomposition of ‘Anesthesia’ is worth the entry fee twice over if you ask us – masticating the original with his hybrid analogue/digital modular system, manifesting a noxious roil of stereo splintered percussion, banking clouds of gaseous metallic tone and plonging globular bass oozing for 13 minutes over the A-side. It’s the final word in noise techno churn.

Flipside, the legendary Justin Broadrick aka JK FLesh has his way with ‘cX31Ø’, first sizing up a widescreen gothic intro before a Reese bass drop and half-tempo amens roll out from the shadows like ‘The Dark Soldier’’s dungeon-dwelling spawn, whilst Raster Noton’s Grischa Lichtenberger reduces ‘Spectral Nightdrive’ to a schematic of precise bass pressure and mercurial, Autechreian oversteps.