Send "Pale Sketcher " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 I came late to Justin Broadrick. In 2005, he donated a remixed and retitled Jesu track for a compilation to benefit the New Orleans radio station WTUL where I was a volunteer. At the time, in the aftermath of the notorious man-made flood, WTUL was broadcasting from a coffee shop, one of the glimmers of optimism in a city temporarily suffused with a sense of monumental doom.I forgot about Broadrick until 2007 when he released a new Jesu record, Conqueror, and also Pale Sketches, an album of his Jesu offcuts from the preceding seven years. Now, in 2010, he adopts the name Pale Sketcher to issue this “de-mixed” version of the latter, wherein different elements are brought to the fore and others erased (as in dub) as he traverses a terrain dominated by beats and synthesizers—at times under a thin mist of recognizable guitar or voice. Things begin very well as “Don’t Dream It (Mirage Mix)” is bristling with melodic vibrations and glitchy rhythm harnessed to a heavy thump and sonorous synth suggestive of an enormous robotic thief limping along spilling coin bags and cash registers. The track has some layered sounds which are near-impossible to describe: Is he being accompanied by a bunch of titanium weasels rubbing their paws over wine glasses? “Can I Go Now (Gone Version)” is mainly interplay between a percussive throb akin to the huff of a steam train and Broadrick’s processed voice. The effect is quasi-choral and industrial, as if Sigur Ros were somehow arriving at Birmingham New Street station for a spot of winter shopping (in the late 19th century)....full text |
| Ghostly |
| If Justin K. Broadrick’s Jesu project is the sound of the UK artist exorcising his demons, pummeling them into submission with tsunamis of guitar noise, Pale Sketcher is the sound that echoes through his head in the aftermath—a haunting, lonely sound-world of distressed beats and hazy melancholia. Broadrick’s electronic-music projects have historically taken a bit of a back seat to his more well-known metal excursions (his founding roles in Godflesh and Napalm Death, his long-running shoegaze-metal project Jesu), but with Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed Broadrick brings Pale Sketcher into the spotlight, adding a new layer to the prolific artist’s already-dense body of work. Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed consists of songs originally released on the 2007 Jesu album Pale Sketches—a collection of electronics-oriented Jesu songs that didn’t quite fit on a conventional release. On Demixed, Broadrick revisits these Jesu misfits and plunges them deeper into the abyss, de- and re-constructing them into lumbering, beat-driven synthesizer symphonies. Album opener “Don’t Dream It (Mirage Mix)” pairs twinkling piano keys with a foreboding swath of synthesized drone, juxtaposing the ugly and the beautiful in a way that evokes the mood—if not necessarily the sound—of Jesu. “Supple Hope” brings Broadrick’s vocals into the mix, adding a human element to the stuttering beat as smoky sibilants hiss around the periphery. Standout “Dummy (Banhoff Version)” breaks form with its lightly sweetened nostalgia, buzzing and humming like late-summer fireflies over a lugubrious breakbeat. Closer “Plans That Fade (Faded Dub)” evokes its title to a T, all echo-y tendrils, reverberating rimshots, and translucent vocal sounds that melt into the air like smoke....full text |
| Residentadvisor |
| Justin Broadrick should need no introduction; metal and grindcore pioneer as part of Napalm Death and all of Godflesh, electronic producer as Techno Animal and Final, his recent waves have been made with shoegaze-metal project Jesu. Under that name he released a 2007 album of misfits entitled Pale Sketches, a collection of tracks that didn't fit with his final conception of Jesu. Here he launches his new alias, Pale Sketcher, with an album of "demixes" of that very Jesu album. If it wasn't obvious already, Jesu: Pale Sketches Demixed is an odd little album, sort of like the original on a steady diet of downers: namely, emaciated and lethargic. The album runs the gamut from ambient to post-rock to techno, but it's all touched by Broadrick's unmistakable idiosyncrasies. Take opener "Don't Dream It (Mirage Mix)," which melts down the monolithic guitar of Jesu into breaking waves of frothy saltwater, sprinkled with jagged shards of sampled chimes, strings and chorals, all held down by a reverbed-into-oblivion drum beat. You can get an idea of what the album sounds like from this, a languorous and deliberate crawl in-between genres. The rest of the album plays somewhat to this theme, with minor variations. Sometimes the formula doesn't quite gel; "Can I Go Now (Gone Version)" is unbearably schmaltzy, cliched melodies brought to the fore through equally hackneyed sounds, and the same goes for "The Playgrounds Are Empty (Slumber Mix)," where slow-motion backwards guitar and Broadrick's vocal lines are given an unfortunate spotlight. The vocals work best when they contribute another layer of colour to the soundscape instead of being its focal point, as they do in the cascading layers of "Supple Hope (2009 Mix)," the album's highlight for its strong fusion of (almost) dance floor-ready rhythms and post-rock melodrama....full text |
Pale Sketcher lyrics
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