Terence Fixmer travels the darker side of the moon. He hails from France and has influenced the local and international techno scenes a huge lot.
He released his first album in 1999 in DJ Hell’s International Deejay Gigolos. It was a mix of techno, electro, Industrial, EBM which was perfectly suited for a dancefloor. What makes the dark part of Fixmer’s techno real is his approach to music. In 2003 he teamed up with the lead singer of the legendary EBM (Electronic Body Music) band Nitzer Ebb and the duo created two albums, the “Between The Devil” (2004) and “Into The Night” (2008). They also performed live on both techno and EBM festivals, which is probably a dream situation for a lot of techno DJs. The amazing possibility to combine the two genres, which lay so close and don’t cross each other’s paths except for the times when one musical component is mixed with the other.
No doubt that Fixmer knows the recipe perfectly. Fixmer is an analogue junkie, as all of the early producers are, and he still uses his synthesizers, but says that the modern digital products leave a lot of space of creativity. Whatever the hardware or software is, Terence’s techno has always been techno and still is. He prefers to create in autumn or winter because there is less sunshine. Very goth. The 2015 album “Depth Charged” is indeed charged with depth and the slow opening “Ellipse” is very industrial and surprises by light-bugs suddenly jumping into your ear in the middle of the track. All of the album is worth paying attention to, as that’s the production you don’t meet every week.
As for his Planete Rouge, the label that he installed in 1998, it is the mirror of what Fixmer sees in the music world. The Hacker, Echologist, NX1, Crash Course in Science, and Fixmer himself drop proper seriousness on the imprint. The label is about music, not about statements, as Fixmer is himself, so you will just need to listen to the releases to draw yourself a bio-pic for Planet Rouge. One thing to say: it’s a pleasure to see 20 years of stable work on the dark side, which makes us all so happy.
