Anthony Child aka Surgeon returns to the legendary Tresor records with a new LP entitled ‘Shell~Wave’. The album is due out May 2nd, 2025 in Vinyl (2LP) & Digital formats.
Pre order Vinyl: Bandcamp
Retaining the minimal equipment list and studio-version-of-live-show-sets approach of the previous album in order to focus on the impact of the work itself, ‘Shell~Wave’ is a deeply personal document of both where Surgeon is and has been, converging three decades of experience with a continued curiosity in the untested.
“To make this project, I had to dig really deep in terms of what my relationship was to techno; I’ve been involved with it for a really long time and there’s a lot about it I feel dislocated from, so I had to really think hard about what techno is to me. I get asked “what is techno to you?” but I can’t answer that with words; this album is the answer.”
From the complex, twisting track ‘Infinite Eye’ to the caustic ‘Soul Fire’, the eight tracks that make up the body of the album are explorations of the vast, hard yet minimal techno Child is synonymous with. Each was recorded in a single take to fully capture what Child describes as “the tension and difficulty in the relationship between the human and the machine. It’s what I really love about electronic music: the tension between the brutal efficiency [of the machines] but the humanity you can hear as well.”
Neatly dividing the record in two, the emotional centre of the record comes in the form of ‘Dying’, a vibrating, beatless piece that with a mantra-like vocal loop steeped in reverberating effects.
Further echoes of dub production appear throughout the record as tracks like ‘Divine Shadow’, and ‘Empty Cloud’ have an almost ever-present mist of reverberation, driven by the appearance of a new delay unit in the equipment list; while much of the philosophy of Crash Recoil’s creation is present, the process and the instruments have changed as Child again switches up his approach to studio work.
This insistence on trying novel techniques doesn’t preclude returning to old ones, as this use of modern digital machines with live, hands-on takes that are as inspired by 60s producer Joe Meek and 70s reggae as they are by this year’s synthesiser expos. “[Meek] knew about creating emotional intensity with music. That was the most important thing, more important than technical perfection. For me, it’s an interesting experience returning to old techniques again after 30 years. [I’m] always exploring and finding myself back at the beginning. Connecting the present with the past.”
This philosophy of ‘time travel’ is inherent to the music itself as the synchronised loops repeat while the delay and effects branch out, forming unique eddies; distinct quantum moments within the circular whole, the future leaking through the spaces between the sounds.
The concept is perfectly communicated through the album’s artwork as artist Jazz Szu-Ying Chen’s painting conveys ideas of the movement of water, soundwaves, and the chitinous shells of sea creatures:
“Her work really struck me, and everything tied together in an unconscious way; I find it quite hard to explain what the title ‘Shell~Wave’ means to me but the artwork is better than words at describing the ideas and, with the bubbles being almost like echoes, also the music which in turn answers a question I wouldn’t be able to answer in any other way.”
Tracklist.
A1 / 01. Serpent Void
A2 / 02. Soul Fire
B1 / 03. Divine Shadow
B2 / 04. Forgotten Gods
B3 / 05. Dying
C1 / 06. Infinite Eye
C2 / 07. Triple Threat
D1 / 08. Empty Cloud
D2 / 09. Fall
Artist. Surgeon
Title. Shell~Wave
Cat#. TRESOR373
Format. 2LP / Digital
Release date. May 2nd, 2025
All tracks written & produced by Anthony Child
Artwork by Jazz Szu-Ying Chen, Desigh by Onlab
Cat. No. TRESOR373 – All rights reserved
℗ & © Tresor Records 2025
www.tresorberlin.com
Surgeon Press Pics © Cathrin Queins
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