Through The Cortex

‘Through The Cortex’, @Terence-Fixmer's sixth solo album and his first on Ostgut Ton, is techno with a voice – or rather multiple voices – guiding listeners through hypnotic, space- and social-themed terrain as a kind of dark soundtrack to darker days. Across eight tracks at a compact but varied 40 minutes, the LP touches on an aesthetic hinted at in recent Ostgut Ton releases, revealing a sonic narrative through noisy, screaming synth/vocal riffs with a jagged, guitar-like post-punk sensibility. The mesmerizing Suicide-like pop of single “Accelerate” sees Terence Fixmer using his voice as an instrument, chanting the track’s ambiguous title in an invocation of systemic change/collapse.