Second wave of Detroit techno. From north of Detroit in Windsor, Ontario, Hawtin has been a DJ, a producer, a record label owner, and a flag-waver for the underground Detroit scene which is only now getting the respect it deserves in the United States. Hawtin started his career DJing at underground parties in clubs like Detroit’s Shelter. There he met his partner, John Acquaviva, and together they launched the influential Plus 8 Recordings label.
Hawtin created a unique techno sound, which is regarded as synonymous with the city of Detroit. That sound, electro house, is very minimal, yet highly danceable. He is known for his use of the Roland TB-303 bass machine and that sound has become inseparable from quality acid house and electro recordings. These days, Hawtin kicks around with a TR-909 drum machine. Hawtin signed a record deal with Nova Mute in 1993, and is considered a star in Europe, where he has enjoyed success with his project, Plastikman.
In 1994, rumor has it that Hawtin was scheduled to perform at a rave held inside the Brooklyn Bridge. Allegedly, while crossing the border from Canada, guards stopped him, assuming he was attempting to work illegally in the US due to the massive amount of equipment in his car. Supposedly he went home and recorded a set to DAT and shipped it to the promoters. To this day, no one can say for certain whether that headlining slot was live or on tape.
Richie Hawtin is many things – an extraordinary DJ, creator of the ENTER. Experience in Ibiza, mastermind behind the Minus label, technological innovator, art aficionado, style icon. Before this, though, and perhaps most famously of all, he was and is Plastikman, an electronic music phenomenon whose followers are legion and fanatic.
Between 1993 and 2003 Plastikman created an astonishing body of work, one that didn’t so much define a time and place as explode them, expanding the dimensions of Detroit techno and redefining the possibilities of electronic dance music. Across six albums (‘Sheet One’, ‘Musik’, ‘Recycled Plastik’, ‘Consumed’, ‘Artifakts (B.C.)’, and ‘Closer)’ and numerous singles such as ‘Spastik’, ‘Plastique’, and ‘Sickness’, Plastikman evolved into one of contemporary electronic music’s most distinctive voices: minimalist, psychedelic, groove-laden and ever mindful of the transcendent properties of electronica.
As the ‘90s dawned, Plastikman also helmed some of the most intense, mind-bending parties underground electronic music has ever known. They took place in and around Detroit, as well as Hawtin’s home town of Windsor, Ontario, and their reputation spread worldwide by word-of-mouth, snail mail and message boards. The parties were based on those he’d experienced as a teenager at Detroit’s legendary Music Institute; a black sweatbox of a room, a single strobe light, and the phattest sound system.
Fast forward – last autumn Raf Simons, Creative Director at Dior, a man who listens “to Richie Hawtin’s music like others listen to classical music”, asked him to put on a special performance at the Guggenheim, New York’s iconic art museum, the centre-piece for their annual fund-raiser. From this event there was an unexpected knock-on effect.
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