Terence Fixmer is one of France’s most beloved protagonists of the underground electro scene (alongside The Hacker, David Carretta or Arnaud Rebotini) and runs his own label, Planète Rouge. His third solo album “Fiction Fiction” is out now.

What’s your new album “Fiction Fiction” about?
I would say that Fiction Fiction album has a more mental direction and deeper atmosphere, sometimes makes me think of movies like Alien or Sci Fi movies…thats why I have a space-influenced title.
And for many tracks, when i close my eyes listening to them , i have space images coming to my mind.
This album, compared to my previous album, is less agressive in terms of energy , but more soulful in terms of mood.

What’s coming up on Planète Rouge?
In fact, I will release more stuff on a sublabel of Planete Rouge called From Jupiter, Planete Rouge is more oriented in techno with an EBM sound.
So as far as next releases , there will be the Hypnose release including the Radio Slave remix, as well as the album Fiction Fiction on vinyl too but in limited editions, all the sleeves will be numbered and each of them will be signed by me, so that will be a nice collector’s vinyl.
Then after I will release Crash course in Science including a Danton Eeprom remix. And after this probably a 12″ by Xenia Belyeva.

How did you end up setting up your own label, Planète Rouge?
I live in Lilles and I was really influenced by Belgium and what’s going on there.
So in 90/95 Belgium was very techno oriented, but then trance music appeared and mainly every club played that music. So I was kind of frustrated cause there wasn’t much techno in clubs anymore. As a producer too, I couldn’t imagine anyone being interested in my sound since everybody was into trance…so I decided to create Planète Rouge and to release techno. So that was the start of a great story.

How do you see today’s electro scene?
Actually , I think in terms of music many people try to do music as a recipe.
They hear something good, and they just take the same element and repeat…it’s like the same puzzle. So I think many tracks don’t bring anything really new and there is no soul.
What I regret is that many producers don’t follow their instinct and just do music with no personality but just because its a trend to do this or that way.
I think that before there was probably more creativity and producer didn’t follow rules and just created something. Now many track sound the same.
Of course and fortunately there are still some really good innovative tracks and new producers. But nowadays less track surprise me compared to some years ago.

What are your influences?
I would say that my electronic education came from Front 242, Nitzer EBB, the label R&S ( the old classic tracks from this label), Plastikman, Novamute and techno with soul.

As an artist & label owner, what would you see as the perfect online service?
Of course to spread the sound and to give all information to the people about release, images, videos etc.

Where would you be without internet?
I think i will be probably in a cavern or an island after a plane crashed…:)
I cannot be without internet , it’s like vital for me for communication with my friends, for getting information, for everything in fact, even to order food, to book planes, to buy things…i do everything with it…
When I lose my connection for 1 day I feel like I am dead almost…but it’s good to take a break from internet as well.

Digital or physical, free, priced, where do you position yourself as both artist and label owner?
I would say I love physical because I love it as an object, I like to have something in the hand, I like to have sleeves to look at it, read all info on it.
And I like digital because it’s quickly in the computer, I use it for listening to music , plus it’s cheaper…so it’s like a balance: what we win somewhere , we lose somewhere else.
Also digital as a label is really easy in terms of promotion , and easier to set up for sales.
As an artist , we are happy to have an object in the hand with the sleeves , it’s more like a piece of art.
Thats why I still release physical because otherwise I will feel like I have no release, if its only digilal files…for me the physical release is kind of a way to officialize the release.

The future of Terence Fixmer?
Oops…of course, I am still passionate about creating electronic music, so I can imagine to do a new 12 ” and at a certain point why not a another album.
I will probably do another album with my other project FixmerMcarthy. I’d also like to do music for documentaries and movies; I did it once and it was a nice experience.

And of the music industry?
For vinyls, I am kind of worried because now it’s really a collector’s thing which makes me sad because I was born with it, and I loved the touch of it so much, the smell and the object. So of course digital is the way to be now, but I think there are so many releases that’s its getting really difficult to know all releases and even if we try to look for everything , we miss some stuff.

Current faves?
Artist? Sleeparchive
Food? Italian
Club? Berghain/Berlin
Album? The Liaisons dangereuses album
Book? la Peau des Hommes (Willi Heinrich )
Gadget? Evolver dave smith instrument

Visit Terence Fixmer website
Visite Module Music blog