terence fixmerÕs path through the changing techno landscape of the past 20 years has been anything but direct. indeed, the french born producer, musician and planete rouge label founder has long been influenced by the periphery of continental european dance music subgenres from electronic body music, new beat and acid, before combining them into his own pioneering hybrid of futuristic, ebm-inflected techno with classic releases such as 2001Õs muscle machine or the collaborative between the devil lp with nitzer ebbÕs douglas mccarthy as fixmer/mccarthy. while the sound in recent years has been rediscovered and recast in diverse contexts by a new generation of producers, through the cortex sees fixmer gravitating toward a different kind of industrial-tinged electronics, led as much (or more) by analogue sequencers, melodies and ultra-saturated sounds of synthesizers than drums and percussion. across eight tracks at a compact but varied 40 minutes, the lp touches on an aesthetic hinted at in recent ostgut ton releases (2016Õs beneath the skin ep and 2017Õs force ep), revealing a sonic narrative through noisy, screaming synth/vocal riffs with a jagged, guitar- like post-punk sensibility.
