Bleep Exclusive Clear Vinyl Edition
Having emerged onto the techno scene back in 94' with the Detroit led Surgeon EP (legend has it these recordings were composed when he was locked in the downstairs toilet come studio at fellow Brummie Mick Harris of Napalm Death/Scorn's house) and released on long time associates Karl O'Connor aka Regis and Peter Sutton aka Female's Downwards imprint. The release of this 12" marked Surgeon real name Anthony Child instantly as a name to check, by mixing at times harsh and abrasive sounds from the Jeff Mills school of smash the f**k out of the speakers with a sharp but singular UK industrial sound that built upon the foundations of groups like Throbbing Gristle and artists such as Fad Gadget, Surgeon made the first steps into the history of UK industrial post-punk led techno. This first EP led to an array of projects including landmark albums for Tresor, the breakbeat techno collaboration British Murder Boys that was Whitehouse reimagined for the dancefloor and more recently collaborations with Blawan as Trade and the surprise live project with Lady Starlight.
On the flip side he has journeyed deep into ambient rooted experiments in synthesis on albums for NNA Tapes and more recently Editions Mego. So, if you have not realised it yet Surgeon is a bit of a jack of all trades within electronic music and it's here in his seventh Surgeon LP 'From Farthest Known Objects' released on his own Dynamic Tension imprint that he really boils down elements from all these projects into what many will champion as the most realised vision of his sound yet. Built out of eight tracks, From Farthest Known Objects is in many ways a follow up to his 2002 Guitar Treatment's LP - a collaboration with astrophysicist and guitarist Dr Andrew Read. Using this album as a format to "tune into transmissions from Distant Galaxies." Child has enlisted the help of Read to explore where these transmissions originated.
Now, while this is something that will require further research the music that soundtracks it is banging. Full of armour plated techno tanks that roll straight ahead and guaranteed to crush all other techno records in your collection. EGS-zs8-1 starts off with a bass heavy kick full of distortion and sounding like the long lost part three of Midnight Club Tracks before z8_GND_5296 rears its head, a slowly rotating precisely placed track that builds in intensity before cutting into the proper darkside mechanism SXDF-NB1006-2 that deploys squishy synths around a thundering 4 x 4. GN-108036 continues the pin point jolt of the first track with a glance towards Neil Landstrumm's grimy bass techno fodder.
The second half of the album starts with the subtlety of BDF-3299 that's Basic Channel if they had been recording in early 90's Sandwell and not early 90's Kreuzberg while the last three tracks switch between Trade style analogue slammers to fierce roaring breakbeat indebted numbers that are undoubtedly raw dynamic techno. For our money Surgeon has been miles ahead of anyone else in the game and his tireless schedule of releases has kept him at the forefront of a very physical sound that at times is harsh and abrasive but retains a constant incredibly expansive and FWD-thinking experimental take on techno and on From Farthest Known Objects it's clear that Surgeon is continuing to push his sound forward with a force+form momentum that will have a huge impact be it in the middle of the night in nightclubs around the world, or in the counterbalance of your headphones on a slow moving Monday morning commute on the way to work.
