From Farthest Known Objects

Surgeon\'s *From Farthest Known Objects* splits the difference between the breakneck techno of his \'90s output and the ambient albums released under his own name, Anthony Child. Made on what he calls \"old and unlikely hardware,\" all 11 tracks share a nearly identical palette of buzz and rumble; instead of traditional drum machines, he sculpts gurgling frequencies into gnarled sounds that serve as both percussion and melody. \"z8\_GND\_5296\" has Kompakt\'s T. Rex shuffle and \"GN-108036\" rolls like Robert Hood; mostly, though, these otherworldly rhythms are maps to a world of Surgeon\'s own invention.

The UK techno producer Anthony Child, better known as Surgeon, returns to techno after a few years of ambient electronic music. The more time you spend with the album, the more it begins to feel like a universe of pure texture: There are no melodies, just gnarled one- and two-bar loops that wend their way across the tracks like inchworms through radioactive ash.