There is a certain remoteness to Richie Hawtin. He is all mythical – reserved and unassuming – and very little is known about him- his music and his achievements yes, but anything else? Well after a while, the best I could conjure was that he likes scuba diving in his spare time. And that one day, he hopes to play golf on the moon – but regardless of how likely that is, I bet he’ll still be doing what he does – and most notably, he will still be relevant.
Plastikman’s life is almost like a love story. Think about this. A curious young kid living in Canada, connects with the soulful roots of Detroit. The masters are a bunch of guys like Derrick May and Carl Craig, Jeff Mills even [in his ‘wizard’ days] – all of whom must have been quite intimidating. So how did a young Rich Hawtin find himself immersed in the scene? “Detroit techno has always had a connection with Motown. Detroit is always a place where people looked to escape their surroundings. It is a blue collar town and it’s off the beaten track; it doesn’t have the excitement of a Toronto or a New York and that’s why people throw themselves into their passion. That’s why so much good comes from the city.”
Back in those days, he was a young kid who was into new and different things. “When I got into something I got into it full force. Then I would be like, I’m bored, next please! When I got into the music scene, I found myself in the middle of an environment that you could feel was small, but there was this energy – and you knew that one day it was going to be big.” With a preliminary interest in early electronica – Kraftwerk – and also all things punk – Sex Pistols et al – Richie knew techno would be ‘the new punk’. “I quickly put myself into the middle of it all and started going to clubs, buying and playing music. I was really naïve but I wouldn’t take no for an answer – there was no stopping me! I hooked up with the people at K.M.S and met Derrick May and it was on.”
Indeed, experimenting with all manner of different sounds throughout his career, he doesn’t like to be considered a “one crate DJ”. “Plastikman was a way of getting into the subtleties of electronic music, messing with heads, whereas the Richie Hawtin sound was about feet and making them move. In my experience, I like a balance between them, letting the sound bounce around in your head, and making your feet move; this is what grabbed me about electronic music in the very beginning.” And for much the same reason, Hawtin is taking a keen interest in the audio as well as the visual medium. “In fact, before I was doing music, I was going to school to learn video and cinematography and in the last few years I’ve worked out how to mix video with music. Music on its own can work magic, but if you can couple it with visuals, it’s a whole different level.”
Hawtin and a band of technicians gave the concept their best shot last year in Toronto and with much fanfare, founded a new live concept called ‘Mutek’. Virtually a world first on the scale in which it was presented, the idea was to perform a completely live audio and video arrangement by manipulating via a number of what he terms “predetermined concepts”. “We created visual elements to much of the music I’d done. By trying to find some visual interpretation and allowing that to move freely within the sound allows you to be inspired. Unfortunately there isn’t much technology allowing you to do that, so we had difficulty in completing it successfully. It drained us technically not to mention financially and we are still trying to work out how to make it work. Stay tuned.” It is heartening then, to know that one of the world’s truly gifted artists is allowing his art to grow richer and even more inventive.
Forget that Hawtin is a superlative DJ on three turntables – graceful and polished. Forget too, that he is also label boss and was a purveyor of new technologies like Final Scratch and i-pod. And that his early modified 303 sounds and minimal dub have today spawned a vast industry that focuses on the elegant [and now fashionable] sounds he experimented with years ago. Rather, here is a visionary with an aptitude and elegance generally unmatched in the world of electronic music – no less, he is a techno revolutionary.
Don’t miss Richie Hawtin, touring Australia this March playing selected dates as part of Two Tribes and club show:
Sat Mar 5th – Sydney, Hardware v2.0 (BUY TICKETS)
Sun Mar 6th – Perth, Two Tribes (BUY TICKETS)
Fri Mar 11th – Brisbane, Family
Sat Mar 12th – Adelaide, Two Tribes
Sun Mar 13th – Melbourne, Two Tribes (BUY TICKETS)
