JPX picks two too

Wow, this was really difficult. I found myself unable to tackle this quickly because whenever I sat down to choose two tunes I knew that there were many others that I would like to suggest and I didn't want to be typecast as having these songs represent everything I like. I kept thinking, "I need to put down something current that people might not have heard of", but in the end I just chose stuff that I've come back to over the years.

Octo introduced me to industrial music via Skinny Puppy and in an effort to find other similar music I stumbled upon Frontline Assembly, which had a number of side-projects including Intermix. I've always liked this particular cut because it's hypnotic and it incorporates a somewhat techno sound with tribal chants seamlessly merging modern and ancient sounds.

Intermix - "Targeted"


Intermix was a musical band in the 1990s, made of Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber.
Unlike their other projects (including Front Line Assembly, Noise Unit, and Delerium), Intermix showed somewhat more of a techno music influence, while Delerium was more mellow like ambient music, and FLA had a very industrial music style.

On the first two albums Intermix sounded a bit like a collection of uncompleted snippets of ideas.

The third Intermix album however sounded completely different from the first two, being a lot more ambient and could actually also have been released as a Synæsthesia record or possibly an early Delerium record.

Early versions of Microsoft's Windows XP beta versions used the first minute of the song Voices from the first Intermix album as background music for the Welcome Assistant. It was however not credited and it seems it was not with permission. It was replaced in the final version of Windows XP.

The pair released three albums as Intermix:
Intermix in 1992
Phaze Two in 1993
Future Primitives in 1995

Also the following 12 inch singles were released:
Dream On in 1992, only officially released single
Intermix/In The Nursery in 1992, A-side songs only (B-side was from the band In The Nursery)
Monument in 1993, promotional release only
Telekinetik Warriors in 1995, promotional release only
Except for the Monument single, only the Album versions were used on these singles. Videoclips were made for Monument (Lost Classic Remix Edit) and The Process (Short Film) in 1992-3.

The Fixx - "Reach the Beach"


Beyond the smattering of hits they had back in the 80s, I've always liked The Fixx. Rather than pad their albums with filler to support the popular songs, the best Fixx is the stuff that wasn't played on the radio. I've always like the imagery this song evokes and it will forever remind me of the many, many days that Octo and I, along with our friend Keith, created our claymation shorts when we were in our mid-teens.