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Beginner's Guide to Drum'n'Bass Vol. II

Albums
John Luther Adams
Monty Adkins
Celer
Eric Chenaux
Sarah Davachi
A. Die & Lorenzo Montana
Dikeman / Serries
DinahBird
Ricardo Donoso
Elian
Emika
Terence Fixmer
Hotel Neon
Islands Of Light
Fernando Lagreca
Lake People
K. Leimer
Daniel Lentz
Rudresh Mahanthappa
Tesla Manaf
Metcalf, Roach & Thomas
David Michael / Slavek Kwi
James Murray
Áine O'Dwyer
Fabio Orsi
Matana Roberts
Nadia Shpachenko
simakDialog
Subtle Lip Can
Robert Scott Thompson
Christian Wallumrød
Woven Entity
Yagull
Yodok III

Compilations / Mixes
Joseph Capriati
Nina Kraviz

EPs / Cassettes / DVDs / Mini-Albums / Singles
Anduin
CTRLS
Dexta
Digital, D. Phiz., Response
Igorrr & Ruby My Dear
Rima Kato
Klute
Mako, Villem & Mcleod
Seba
Second Moon Of Winter
Manfred Waffender

Terence Fixmer: Depth Charged
CLR

Terence Fixmer's fifth solo album, Depth Charged, is eerie art-techno of a particularly high order. A long time coming, the fifty-minute collection (issued on Chris Liebing's CLR imprint) arrives more than four years after the release of the French producer's previous album, Comedy Of Menace (Electric Deluxe). While Fixmer describes Depth Charged as “his most introspective album yet,” it's hardly lacking in dancefloor oomph, and listeners with a taste for techno's dark, industrial side (releases on Gravite and Ostgut Ton come to mind) will find much to admire about Fixmer's latest opus.

“Ellipse” establishes a dark tone for Depth Charged with an industrial-strength plunge into a cavernous, grime-coated basement where slow, bulldozing rhythms pulsate and haunted synth atmospherics abound. With Fixmer's album now located in the dark underground, “Fleeting Beauty” rolls out a fleet-footed techno groove smothered in fluttering clicks and ominous bass swells and shadowed by a vaporous ambient-drone.

Eerie his material may be, but it's also tailor-made for the club floor, as exemplified by the relentless and sleek 4/4 of “Unforeseen” and “Pallid Light.” “Inside of Me,” which Marcel Dettmann selected for his Fabric 77 mix, is as club-focused, but creepy too in the way it strafes its militant kick drum pattern with unsettling vocal accents (as if to accentuate his music's disturbing bent, Fixmer follows it with the related “Outside of Me,” which strips out the beats altogether and shifts the focus entirely to its horror show keyboards). A tad more light floods the space during “Thoughts” in the form of sweeping synth textures and a rollicking, dub-inflected groove.

February 2015