Blackest Ever Black DJ setA darkly sculpted DJ set from Surgeon, recorded in October 2011 at Blackest Ever Black's London showcase
Surgeon remains one of electronic music's most consistently thrilling performers. Hugely influential in techno circles since the mid nineties, his productions and DJ mixes point to constant evolution in his sound and a steady absorption of new influences.
Last year's Breaking the Frame, his first album in over ten years, struck a curveball at all those anticipating a pummelling set of textured techno tracks, instead distilling some of his listening habits of recent years — the likes of Alice Coltrane, Eliane Radigue and La Monte Young — into a very personal document, one that searched for, as he put it, 'the deep spiritual essence that lay behind the surface structures of their individual music'.
This set was recorded in October 2011 in London, when Surgeon performed as the mystery guest at a showcase night for the Blackest Ever Black label. Given Blackest Ever’s brooding trajectory, the event’s line-up struck a suitably shadowy tone, featuring label mainstays Raime, William Bennett's formidable Cut Hands project, and long-time Surgeon collaborator Regis (with whom Surgeon performed a surprise closing set under their British Murder Boys guise).
As Surgeon himself said, there was a rather strange, tense atmosphere in the club throughout the evening, due no doubt to hosting a bill of such intensely disturbed music in the heart of London's hip Shoreditch, and this tension probably comes across on this recording from the night.