Shapednoise

Italian producer Nino Pedone, who also works as a DJ and audio engineer, crafts abrasive experimental techno laced with industrial elements under the Shapednoise moniker. While enrolled in audio-engineering studies in Milan, he began making tracks, the earliest of which appeared digitally on Pfirter’s MindTrip Music in 2010. After relocating to Berlin in 2011, he co-founded Repitch Recordings alongside Ascion and D. Carbone; the three artists then issued a series of 12-inch singles featuring their spacious, high-tension minimal techno. Shapednoise’s Features, Vol. 2 EP came out on the label in early 2012, while System Procedure surfaced on Key Records Vinyl at roughly the same moment.

That year Pedone formed the industrial-techno duo Violetshaped with Violet Poison (Francesco Baudazzi), and the pair debuted with the 12-inch EP The Great Mother Down the Stairs on the latter’s own imprint, followed by a double-LP album in 2013. Also in 2013, Shapednoise issued two full-lengths that steered his sound toward greater abstraction and noise: the Day of Refuge cassette on Hospital Productions, the label run by Dominick Fernow (Prurient, Vatican Shadow), and the Until Human Voices Wake Us LP on Opal Tapes. In 2014 an untitled 12-inch EP appeared via Russian Torrent Versions, the clandestine sublabel of Ron Morelli’s L.I.E.S., and Pedone supplied remixes for Stroboscopic Artefacts founder Lucy as well as experimental French guitarist Franck Vigroux, whose Centaur EP inaugurated the Repitch sublabel Cosmo Rhythmatic.

The next year Shapednoise joined forces with Black Rain—the experimental industrial project of Stuart Argabright, formerly of no-wave pioneers Ike Yard—on the 12-inch EP Apophis, again via Cosmo Rhythmatic. Pedone, Logos, and Mumdance then launched the Sprawl, a project drawing inspiration from science-fiction author William Gibson; their E.P. 1 was released by the Boomkat imprint the Death of Rave in November 2015. One month later, John Twells’ experimental label Type issued Shapednoise’s third album, Different Selves. Featuring a guest appearance by Godflesh’s Justin Broadrick, the record represented Pedone’s most abrasive and exploratory work to date. The EP Deafening Chaos Serenity arrived in late 2016.