Surgeon and Regis to Release Debut British Murder Boys Album

Surgeon (a.k.a Anthony Child) and Regis (a.k.a Karl O’Connor) will release their debut album as British Murder Boys.

Between 2003 and 2005, British Murder Boys released a slew of influential 12″s on Child’s Counterbalance and Regis’ Downwards labels, before reuniting for a 12″ on Mute’s Liberation Technologies imprint in 2012.

Releases since then. have been sporadic, and include a recent cover of Lou Reed “Real Good Time Together” and a limited-edition cassette documenting their residency at Dutch studio Willem Twee.

On Active Agents and House Boys, their long awaited debut album, Child and O’Connor take somewhat of a departure from the heavy industrial sound. Across eight tracks, the duo have delivered a “stripped back return to the raw sound of the ’90s warehouse scene,” we’re told.

Tracklisting

01. The Set Up Man
02. Killer I Said
03. This Is A Calling
04. What You Hide
05. You Said You Want To
06. Keep It Down
07. It’s In The Heart
08. We Will Show You
09. Now, This Is You

Active Agents and House Boys LP is scheduled for June 24 release. Meanwhile, you can stream “Now, This Is You” in full via the player below and pre-order here.

Many, many years into their thing, Surgeon (Anthony Child) and Regis (Karl O’Connor) finally unveil their debut album as British Murder Boys, two decades on from their ‘Learn Your Lesson’ debut for Counterbalance in 2003.

For what feels like a lifetime, British Murder Boys have been at the bleeding edge of techno, both with their solo works during the ‘90s, and since their fortuitous fusion on 2003’s ‘Learn Your Lesson’ and ‘Don’t Give Way to Fear’ blueprints set the course for early ‘00s industrial techno. Despite only issuing a handful of releases since reforming for a (sadly, thwarted) Blackest Ever Black show in 2011, they’ve arguably become poster babs and elder statesmen for the scene, with Surgeon pursuing new modular tekkerz whilst Regis has pushed Downwards down some curious, brilliant alleys, beside his own pursuit of swingeing broken techno rhythms. With ‘Active Agents and House Boys’, they re-fuse as BMB to follow their noses for a sexed-up, cantankerous sound forged in the image of febrile ‘90s HoG sessions, that speaks directly to 2024 ‘floors with a hard-on for the tuffest industrial techno girders.

Regis barks and prowls on Surgeon’s livewire, serpentine synth lines and a restless undertow of offset kicks with a ravenous lust and death wish throughout the set. Beginning bullish but subtly, tensely reserved in ‘I Saw the Set Up Man’, we hear Karl’s industro goth punk urges come into play on the dubbed-out stepper ‘Killer I Said’, before they really commit to the pound with ‘This is a Calling’, ratcheting and focussing the energy into classic, pendulous early BMB templates with ‘It’s What You Hide’, and tilting into all out hardcore techno glazed with Karl’s spunky vox on ‘You Said You Want To’, thru the helter skelter arp escalation of ‘Keep It Down’, a hollow-tip bullet ‘It’s in the Heart’, and the hot-blooded meat motors of their closing couplet.

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