Episode 35 –Surgeon - Scorn

It’s the mid-1980s just outside Northampton, England, where Anthony Child attends a rural comprehensive school. Around the age of fifteen, while attending the school, he watches a video collection of clips featuring the writer and artist, William Burroughs. One of these video clips leaves a particular impression on Child. To this point in his life, Child has viewed forms of media, such as books and music, as having straightforward narratives. Witnessing Burroughs discuss the “cut up” method in this video,  reconfigures his young mind however, encouraging Child to focus on the process, rather than the content, of creative pursuits. Inspired by Burroughs’ use of cut up methods to rearrange the sequence of words in order to reveal a new meaning from them, Child applies it to his developing ideas around the production of sounds. In the years to come, this in turn will inform his creation of seminal 90s English techno, under the artist title Surgeon, such as the track, “Scorn”.