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Surgeon, "From Farthest Known Objects"
This seventh album under the Surgeon moniker from UK techno iconoclast Anthony Child is a bit of an unexpected divergence from his previous work. Naturally, the pummeling repetition and industrial textures remain delightfully intact, but From Farthest Known Objects is considerably weirder and messier than I would have expected (in a good way).  There is a fairly straightforward explanation for that transformation, as Child discovered that a particular hardware set-up yielded sounds so bizarre that he found himself wondering if he had inadvertently created a receiver for distant intergalactic transmissions.  That is only half the story though, as From Farthest Known Objects works so beautifully only because Child had both the ability and vision to harness those sounds in a compelling way.  I do not know if this is necessarily the best Surgeon album ever, as Force + Form is widely considered to be canonical, but it sure feels that way to me.  If it is not, it is at the very least quite an impressive late-career evolution.
To his credit, Anthony Child was admirably persistent in following through on the album’s root conceit, going so far as to enlist an astrophysicist friend to hypothesize where the various interstellar transmissions may have originated.  As a result, From Farthest Known Objects is riddled with unwieldy song titles like the opening "EGS-zs8-1."  For the benefit of the astronomically ignorant, that is the name of the oldest and most distant galaxy ever observed by humankind.  And for the purposes of the album, the transmissions from said galaxy are apparently a squelching and sizzling one-note bass pulse and a quivering series of ascending bleeps. I suppose the bleeps do sound a bit like imaginary deep space transmissions, but nothing on Farthest Known Objects sounds like such a revelatory, otherworldly sound that my hopelessly limited earthling brain cannot even begin to process it.  There is a lot of weird music out there and this album is actually much less bizarre than much of my record collection, but it is nevertheless still quite imaginative by both Earth and dance music standards.  The appeal of this album goes much further than its concept and strangeness of its sounds, as the real revelation is that those messy and unpredictable sounds beautifully counterbalance the obsessive repetition and machine-like precision of Child's grooves.  That added visceral, murky, and warped touch is exactly what Surgeon was always lacking: a suitably chaotic foil for Child's unrelenting precision and perfectionism.
While Child admittedly employs a bit of a recurring formula here, it is one that works quite nicely: a sort of pummeling and sputtering "locked groove" aesthetic.  The best pieces (in most cases) tend to be those which boast the best grooves or just erupt from the speakers most convincingly, such as the opener.  Child has a lot of tricks up his sleeves, however, so there are some very appealing aberrations as well.  For example, the lumbering and sizzling "Sxdf-Nb1006-2" periodically reaches wild crescendos where it feels like it is being twisted and pulled apart as if by a crushing gravitational phenomenon.  Another highlight is the starkly minimalist "BDF-3299," which embellishes its shuffling beat with ominous hums and metallic textures to great effect.  "A1703 zD6" is yet another great curveball, as its insistently buzzing and throbbing rhythm is periodically joined by a rolling, seasick, and out-of-sync motif that completely changes its mood and feel.  In a more general sense, I also very much appreciate the pace and abundantly evident control displayed on this album, as Child avoids the obvious temptation to give in to the cathartic entropy of noise.  This easily could have been one explosive show of force after another, but these pieces all take the harder (and more lastingly satisfying) approach of harnessing that chaos into a structure of mesmerizing repetition.
The single most notable aspect of it all, however, is Anthony Child’s ability to get the most out of so seemingly little.  I cannot think of anyone else who could have made this album work as well it does, as Child takes eight songs that all sound like they were made from just a beat and a broken shortwave radio and manages to imbue them all with life and individual character (no easy feat without the benefit of melodies or hooks).  Even the beats themselves are nothing particularly special, but that is because they are entirely in service of creating obsessively repeating, hypnotic pulses.  Granted, Child aggressively mangles that pulse in a few instances.  In general, however, he manages to give the illusion of a locked groove or recurring loop while expertly tweaking the dynamics to create a satisfying arc and a compelling ebb and flow.  Sometimes those shifts are something as obvious as adding or subtracting a cymbal at just the right time, while other times the changes are much more nuanced and textural.  From Farthest Known Objects feels a lot like watching a master architect work…or at the very least a serious Jenga prodigy (a comparison best illustrated by the gradual removal of components at the end of "EGS-zs8-1").  This album is almost as satisfying to deconstruct as it is to hear, as the sheer craftsmanship involved is impeccable and inventive throughout.  Flawless execution aside, however, From Farthest Known Objects is equally significant as a major creative breakthrough, as Surgeon has managed to find a niche within the half-noise/half-techno milieu that resembles no one else.  This is a stellar album.
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