While NINE INCH NAILS is best known for the soulful teen electronic angst of PRETTY HATE MACHINE and the the metal-influenced BROKEN and then the very pop-industrial THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL — sadly, causing so many frat bros to play CLOSER at their parties — FIXED is my favorite from Oscar-winner Trent Reznor.
“Give it to me; I’ll throw it away…”
FIXED is ‘Halo 6’ — the sixth NINE INCH NAILS effort from Reznor — an labeling affectation I actually appreciate despite the fact that it means very little apart from noting the years that passed in my life.
“WISH THERE WAS SOMETHING REAL! IN THIS WORLD FULL OF YOU! THIS WORLD FULL OF YOU! THIS WORLD FULL OF YOU!” [DISHWASHER SOUNDS]
FIXED is a remix EP. A very long remix EP, comparatively given the length of some of the remixes, but a remix EP nonetheless. It is longer than BROKEN, the EP it is remixing.
“AHHHHH HA HA HA!”
This EP is 100% chaotic staccato mind-bending propulsion. It is unrelenting, especially the efforts from COIL (R.I.P.) and J.G. Thirwell. It’s 40 minutes of wall-to-wall noise and aural abuse and I can’t get enough of it. It’s my absolute favorite of the Halos, and I do not care who knows it, and I’m saddened that it’s one of the most over-looked of his oeuvre. (Thirwell’s WISH is a very particularly protracted and exceptional work.)
“I am so dirty …on the inside. (I want you to throw me away.)”
Also, come on, Thirwell — almost certainly drunkenly — renamed one of the songs ‘Fist Fuck’. That’s one hell of a swing. (How many other Academy Award winners would even admit to a song labeled that?)
[An endless array of percussion, then…] “I’m drowning! Let me out of here!”
I know I’m flying my full teen goth flags here, but fuck it. This album holds up; it’s far more experimental now than then, which is a strange remark, but electro music has sadly become relatively regressive since then.
If you haven’t heard it before — of if you haven’t heard it in over twenty years — and you like really fucking noisy eccentric over-emotional works, you owe it to yourself to queue it up however way you can.
“$##!!#$!@#!!!!!!!!!%^!#$Q&!$%@&&&@#$^#@$~!” […then droning whines]
Yeah, it’s a masterpiece of a clusterfuck. Despite edging very close to MERZBOW levels of noise, it still manages to be hooky and emotional and goddamn fun while also encapsulating the perverse nature that is NINE INCH NAILS. In other words: the perfect remix EP which apparently is a lost art nowadays.