JK Flesh

Under the JK Flesh alias, Godflesh frontman Justin Broadrick pursues solitary explorations of dark, weighty electronic music. The 2012 album Posthuman marked the project's first appearance, blending guitars and vocals in a trajectory that built upon Godflesh while centering fractured beats rooted in dub, garage, and drum'n'bass. All later output eliminated guitars and vocals entirely, moving across the deliberate, abrasive industrial techno of Rise Above in 2016 and the somber, stripped-down minimal techno of Suicide Estate that same year.

Born in Birmingham, England, Broadrick has contributed to multiple pioneering and influential endeavors. These include an early stint with grindcore pioneers Napalm Death in 1985, the co-founding of industrial-metal force Godflesh in the late 1980s, and industrial hip-hop collaborations with Kevin Martin (the Bug) through Techno Animal, Ice, and the Curse of the Golden Vampire. Additional drum'n'bass material has appeared under the names Tech Level 2 and Youpho. Broadrick first employed the JK Flesh credit on Techno Animal's 1991 debut Ghosts and cut several tracks under that name in the late 1990s that surfaced later on the 2009 Krackhead album From Hell. Only in 2012 did he treat JK Flesh as a distinct outlet, issuing Posthuman through 3BY3. Though it retained the bleak, punishing character of his prior work and still included the guttural vocals and downtuned guitars familiar from Godflesh, the record placed greater weight on electronic rhythms. The year closed with the Hydra Head Records split LP Worship Is the Cleansing of the Imagination alongside Prurient.

A lengthy digital EP titled Nothing Is Free arrived from JK Flesh in 2015. No guitars appeared, and the pieces centered on sparse yet heavy rhythms together with growling bass tones. Downwards issued the title track as a 12" single that featured a Surgeon remix. Rise Above, the project's second full-length, surfaced on Speedy J's Electric Deluxe imprint in 2016 and signaled a turn toward slowed, sludgy techno. Suicide Estate, initially a Hospital Productions cassette EP that later expanded to album length, introduced quicker tempos and reduced noise. The slightly more club-oriented Exit Stance followed on Downwards in 2017. Early 2018 brought the Pi Electronics release PI04, which included a Silent Servant remix, while Inner Surface Music put out the Wasplike EP. Electric Deluxe released the dub-techno-inflected New Horizon later that year. In 2019 JK Flesh issued the split-CD Knights of the Black Table with Japanese dubstep producer Goth-Trad and the Hospital Productions collaboration Light Bringer with Orphx. The same label issued the 2020 solo album Depersonalization.