Surgeon - Crash Recoil [Tresor]

This shit is fucking awesome.

  On 3/3/2023 at 9:33 AM, Pirtek said:

More Surgeon just released here:

https://reeko-mdisorder.bandcamp.com/album/scoundrel-2

 

Yeah, brilliant!!

Ooooft!! I listened to that Surgeon and Reeko EP yesterday via a crappy old work van Bluetooth radio and crappy old speakers and it even then sounded bad ass. Definitely one to melt the brain  

What's it gonna sound like via The Beast Amp? 

BEEEEEASST!!

Tony is such a fucking hero

Not long now!

Say the name Surgeon, and most dance music fans will hear a specific sound tailor-made for dark warehouses—think industrial-grade synth work and pounding, abrasive drum programming. And, to be fair, Anthony Child’s most famous alias has been responsible for some of the best blistering techno of the past three decades (not to mention his work as one-half of British Murder Boys).

But where Child has excelled is a sense of spaciousness that offsets his drum programming. Aside from the recurring ambient interludes on his records (he can get experimental with the best of them), his techno releases and DJ sets skew atmospheric. You can hear this all the way back in 1993 in a recording from the legendary House of God parties he founded. The first hour is filled with delicate emotional latticing before he pummels us with unrelenting aggression for the last half hour. 

On Crash Recoil, his first album as Surgeon in five years, Child perfects this balance. Make no mistake about it, this is Techno with a capital “T”—exhibit A: the unforgiving closing track, “Hope Not Hate”—but it’s techno that’s filled with subtlety and drama, as psychedelic as it is visceral. Take the funky opening track “Oak Bank,” dominated by swinging drums and a modular synth line halfway between the elastic grooves of Nick Léon and a vintage rave stab; the distinctive, body-quaking kick doesn’t surface until past the four-minute mark. Even when he is banging it out on a track like “Masks & Archetypes,” he buries melodies and vocal snippets into corners of the stereo like hidden Easter eggs. 

Elsewhere on Crash Recoil, Child takes an even more ethereal approach. On “Leadership Contest” the snares sound like they might disappear any minute underneath the building pressure of the dusty arpeggio; “Second Magnitude Stars” has a similarly smudged, foggy feel, with thick layers of delay giving way to quivering synths near the end.      

What also makes Crash Recoil work so well, though, is that this isn’t just a victory lap for Childs. Child has been keeping up with the Joneses, and there is a specifically contemporary feel to the record, particularly in his loose, occasionally polyrhythmic drum programming and angular synth work. You can hear it on tracks like “We laugh and clap at the circus” and “Metal Pig.” On the former, he brings together Halloween eve creepiness with skittering hand drums, and on the latter, he dissolves a wiry ricocheting melody in a vat of lye over a chugging rhythm. Either of these tracks could have come out on a label like Livity Sound or Hessel Audio and sit up there with the best UK techno coming out at the moment.  

The fact that Tresor is the label putting out the album feels fitting. Both Child and the Berlin institution continue to push techno forward while staying true to its roots. You’d be hard pressed to find an album that finesses the line between innovation and nostalgia better than Crash Recoil.  

On my home from work. Going to get in and listen to it on Spotify. Should have the vinyl in the morning.

Happy days!!

New album sounds awesome on first listen. Though it makes me want to go to dark dingy club & dance about to filthy techno, been far to long! 

Didn't realise there was that EP out as well! Will be checking that out

Really liking it!

Bomb album.  Loving this.

Never been much into Surgeon. Just not my cup of tea (I don’t know specifics or reasons why) but I’m hoping this new album is as good as the two singles and that new EP.

I think it’s gonna go on in the next 20 minutes….

(and I’m actually quite excited about that )

This is the berries!

This album is fucking solid and sounds amazing LOUD. My neighbours will be hearing it a lot this weekend I reckon. 

Coupled with the Reeko EP Surgeon is on a roll at the moment. 

  On 3/18/2023 at 1:25 AM, danshoebridge said:

My neighbours will be hearing it a lot this weekend I reckon

Mine too!

Based on the description I was thinking this might suit my home listening tastes a bit more than his previous output but after actually hearing it I think this is still the kind of thing I'd need to be at a club with some chemical assistance to really enjoy.

Great album, even if it sounds a bit more samey than his other albums. I've been big into his music again these past weeks. This'll be in rotation for a while

I kind of like how it’s a variation of a theme that each gets to mutate it’s own unique way

crash recoil is loaded w/killer tunes. gonna grab that next bandcamp shopping spree. 

What a belter...

Yeah, it's brilliant. I've been playing full blast on vinyl! Killer album!!

  On 2/4/2023 at 1:57 PM, Soloman Tump said:

Yeah, just listened to Oak Bank, very nice.  Bleep now have pre-orders up.  Very happy to hear this album, if its based on sketches from recent live shows then it should be great, saw him twice last year.

 

*edit*
the digitals on bleep are cheaper than the tresor bandcamp, even for .wav.  I know some prefer the convenience of the bandcamp player though, but you could save a couple of quid over there. 

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Standard 24-bit for all Bandcamp .wavs though--just an aside. Bleep hits you with an audiophile surcharge. I'm already asking people to repeat themselves and sometimes can't distinguish between similar consonants but those 8 extra bits are *critical*

Killer LP after a lot of recent Surgeon felt kind of formulistic to me, a very good suprise. This is proper techno and makes me wanna go out to sweaty basement raves, like others mentioned here. Probably you know this gem, but Surgeon and Ilian Tape are a match made in heaven:

Sounds great and a real change of sound for Surgeon. Enjoyed it a bunch!