Since the 1990s, Anthony Child has been one of the most consistent and pivotal electronic music producers to use that craft as a tool for achieving transcendence. Under his aptly chosen DJ-ing and production alias Surgeon, his technical precision and clarity of creative vision have resulted in a highly influential form of techno-mesmerism documented in exhaustive live sets and incisive studio recordings. His talent for wielding beats and sonic textures as healing technologies and as magical weapons simultaneously, and particularly for excelling in “long-form” treatments, has made him not only a key contributor to the legacies of touchstone labels Tresor and Downwards, but also a prized collaborator (his British Murder Boys duo with Regis has capitalized on both producers’ natural intensity to devastating effect). The pure techno idiom has never been his sole method of exploring the vastness of inner space, or of illustrating the interaction of thought and memory with the external environment.
Surgeon’s new full-length, Luminosity Device, takes Bardo Thödol – the Tibetan Book of the Dead – as a starting point for a rhythmic journey into those interstitial spaces where body, mind, and soul no longer seem like distinct categories. While Luminosity Device is part of a modern Western tradition of exploring this topic, which has also included works such as Pierre Henry’s album Le Voyage and Gaspar Nöe’s film Enter the Void, it is something more than just a sonic homage to that legacy. Intended as a deeply personal.
‘Luminosity Device’ LP is out on May 25th on Surgeon’a Dynamic Tension imprint.
