News / / 27.09.13

RICHIE HAWTIN

UNMISTAKABLY PIONEERING TO ANYONE WITH A PASSING INTEREST IN TECHNO, RICHIE HAWTIN’S PLACE AS THE GENRE’S FIGUREHEAD IS SECURE

Reasons abound for Richie Hawtin’s continued prominence. But like any credible artist with a substantial following, a quick sift through the history books finds controversy, periods of change, and risks. For those with a love of techno, Hawtin means something to everyone.

Wind the clock back to last summer and Crack is in the middle of a major party at Sonar. Hawtin’s hour and a half on the main stage has drawn a vast audience to the never ending aircraft hanger space. Sonar royalty, Hawtin’s stark, minimal stage set-up features his current aesthetic of choice – his giant black ENTER dot – and very little else. On a stage that over the weekend featured little in the way of credible techno and far too much in the way of forced personality, Hawtin’s performance encapsulated the pulse of the festival as a whole. The driving minimalism was brought to a roaring crescendo with the superb M-Nus release Kingswing by Matador, one of Hawtin’s protégés. Look carefully at a video recording of the set and you’ll see Hawtin nod to his left before the second drop in the track and two huge glitter cannons explode across the whole of Sonar’s main cavern.

If you’re buying into this cult of personality and uncompromising minimalistic approach, you’re also accepting that despite the clear consciousness of his image, the many transitions during his career and the obvious cynicisms this has brought, herein lies a DJ with an incredible ability to serve a huge crowd. At this point there is no bigger DJ in the world that doesn’t work with commercial R’n’B artists, play Euro-trance or wear a fucking mouse head.

Richie Hawtin is a man continually immersing himself in methods of realigning the existing facets of the techno world he helped create in order to cope with the sheer size of his operation. Yet before suspended cubes that interact with your phone, stadium-sized shows and live track IDs pushed directly to Twitter feeds, there was Hawtin the tech-obsessed kid, the Detroit pilgrim and Plastikman.

You can probably trace the single strongest influence on Hawtin’s continued commitment to progressive technology back to his hardware obsessive, robotics technician father. A typical white, suburban teenager, Hawtin’s close proximity to Detroit while he was living in Windsor, Ontario allowed him to experience first-hand the growth of techno in the city and form relationships with a number of the movement’s main protagonists. Having hosted his own night with guests including Jeff Mills, Hawtin’s relationship with Detroit’s experimental music – and experimental drugs – pushed him deeper into the consciousness of the city and the tastemakers fiercely protective of their scene. Shamelessly geeky and wide-eyed, Hawtin’s candid enthusiasm and raw talent saw him continually re-invest in records and hardware and eventually form his own Plus 8 imprint with friend and musical cohort John Acquiviva. The success of the label ran concurrently with Hawtin’s success with John as Cybersonik, on his own as F.U.S.E (Further Underground Sound Experiments) and later on as his now world-renowned Plastikman moniker.

In the process the white geeks from Canada had managed to not only break into Detroit’s techno hierarchy, but in many respects climb to the top of it, much to the dislike of some of the scene’s foremost protagonists. Jealousy? Perhaps. Quality? Undoubtedly. Plus 8’s continual groundbreaking output provided a platform for initial forays to Europe and huge success in opening up techno to a greater cultural dynamic. The cult of Plastikman’s intensely avant-garde techno, along with its iconic wonky symbol, struck a chord with fans of the music’s dark edge. The Plastikman live show contributed to forging one of the most powerful identities in techno, both in the physicality of the music but also in its starkness and dark acid-tinged symbolism.

As Hawtin’s love of minimalism grew, inspired in part by the abstract paintings of Mark Rothko, he founded M-Nus records, a label that has established a techno community in its own right. Driving, slower (well slower than Plus 8’s output), minimal techno with Hawtin at the centre (now going by his given name), M-Nus launched the careers of the likes of Magda, Marc Houle, Ambivalent, Heartthrob, Gaiser and Matador. It also coincided with Hawtin’s move to Berlin, where he has found huge acclaim and wider acceptance from a continental audience.

It was around this time Hawtin made a firm commitment to using digital technology in his DJing and recording, both in terms of equipment and format. In positioning himself at the forefront of technology Hawtin yet again alienated purists, but equally won himself legions of fans.

Crack found time to interview Richie Hawtin at the juncture of two events; before he presented an incarnation of his ENTER night at Brixton Academy in the evening, and – fresh from a first full year residency at Space in Ibiza – Hawtin had performed for two hours at a secret party for Red Bull in a Dalston car park. Typical of the man, Hawtin’s congenial outlook and character is rooted foremost in his love of people and personality. His inclusive nature sees him hand-pick guests for his ENTER shows and build a community around his larger shows, something he also achieved with a number of artists on M-Nus. Considering he’d just played for two hours, Crack’s time with Richie Hawtin was considered, thoughtful and insightful. For anyone witnessing him at one of his forthcoming UK dates, it’s certain his performances will be of an equally enlightening standard.

 

How important is it for you to keep doing smaller shows? You play big venues a hell of a lot.
It’s so easy as a successful artist to get pushed onto bigger and bigger stages. When I see a good band play, they play their songs and it’s great when they vary from night to night, but a great DJ has even more of an interaction than a great band: a real DJ has a feedback and a communication and you are never sure where things are going to go. A DJ gets to explore that unique situation with people. For me, I need this. To play my best on a bigger stage, I need to play my best on a smaller stage.

With your set today compared to something like ENTER at Space, how does the show change from venue to venue?

In Space it’s a bit different as you’ve got three rooms. ENTER International is about the main room. The main core idea of ENTER is bringing great artists together and trying to give people a new experience, perhaps with people they haven’t heard before. Like tonight, if you think about the line-up, it’s Magda, Maya Jane Coles, Matador and Heidi, so in a way it’s kind of all over the place. I hope Heidi’s fans listen to me, and eventually go ‘woah! Hawtin’s cool!’ At the very core of ENTER and Ibiza, the reason I did it, is to invite artists I love, hang out with them, have a nice dinner and play some cool music.

You’ve always had a core group of people on your label like Mark Houle, Magda and Matador, the way you promote ENTER and yourself always seems to be in tandem.

For sure. We’re all in this together, and if you can’t bring like minded people together then all this is a bit of a waste of time. It’s also why I do something like today’s Red Bull party where I can get closer to the dance floor and get closer to my fans. In electronic music you never know when the fan in front of you is going to become your next artist, or next best friend, or end up working for you. It’s very incestuous.

Where does your music comes from? You obviously pick up tracks that appear on the label, but others aren’t so obvious. Do you ever produce for live to keep an underground quality to your sets?

No, no, I don’t. Sometimes I do some special edits, but normally I have a lot of things going on at once. I like people to walk away from my sets having heard references to tracks they like, but not being able to really understand what they’ve heard. This is why I also tweet the tracks that I play because I want everyone to know the tracks, as I feel the way I put them together is unlike anybody.

That’s a strong confidence in your ability. Do you ever worry that sometimes you may have become too big?

I think even since very early on, since Plastikman was born, I’ve always treaded a very fine line between underground and commercial. The hardcore underground people think I’m too commercial, and the commercial people think I’m too minimal. I want to play for as many people as possible.

We saw you headline Sonar, that was pretty big?

I will play for as many people who want to stand in front of me and are ready to allow me to play without me compromising. At the end of the day, people are there to dance and if there is an underlying energy and you put the groove and structure there in the right way, you can take people much further than they ever thought they could go.

And presumably that sometimes requires huge production values?

Well, sometimes. Sometimes you want to give people different stimuli in order to take them further again. Plastikman was a good example. The music was quite stripped down at points, and not that accessible, but with the visuals it made it a very accessible package.

We wanted to ask you about the continued commitment to pushing the technological boundaries. Is this something you’ll ever stop doing? Will we wake up one day and find you spinning vinyl?
I committed myself in 2000 when they released Final Scratch that I believed in the future of DJing and performance with digital technology. There are hundreds and thousands of kids coming up and playing their hearts out on vinyl. They can do that and all power to them, but don’t expect me to do it anymore.

With so much constantly going on in your world, do you ever find it hard to keep your ear to the ground?

I’m always talking to my friends and listening. When it comes to the label, I’m the only one who listens to the demos. The last two or three years have been hard. After our 10 year anniversary, I shifted into Plastikman and other projects that took me away from the label, so the number of releases went down, as did the amount of momentum. But now I feel we’ve found a better balance. This year we already have 10 releases in the pipeline so you’ll see a further momentum again. But it is very hard to keep all these things going at sustained momentum all the time.

Has that always been a struggle?

It’s always been a struggle, but these are all businesses.

But surely you don’t want to look at it like that?

I try to have an organic approach to the things I find enjoyment in. Sometimes I find more enjoyment in the label, sometimes I find more enjoyment in Plastikman, right now I’m enjoying DJing more than I have in the past 10 years, so you just follow it. If someone complains there aren’t enough releases on the label, I don’t care. If someone complains I don’t do enough gigs, I don’t care. If I’m happy, it’s good.

Why have we not seen any original material for so long? Will we ever see any new Plastikman material or new Richie Hawtin productions at any point?

Try touring non-stop around the globe, producing events like Contakt,Plastikman Live and now ENTER, growing up with increased responsibilities, families, kids, and all other sorts of things come your way and become part of your daily routine. Life. Which is a long way away from being a teenager with too much time on their hands and only one conduit to put it through – making music.

Having met a number of your idols when you were younger on excursions to Detroit, and involving yourself in Detroit’s music scene, people like Derrick May have mentioned your raw enthusiasm for techno. How often do you meet people that turn your head in this way?

Derrick is a great example, he’s a ball of energy, like a mad scientist who lives and breathes his own continuum. Do people like this still exist in our scene? Of course, the scene couldn’t survive without them: inspired, dedicated individuals who put as much energy and time as they have into the art of electronic music! Right now we’re seeing an explosion of new talent, kids who are just going to their first party, producers releasing their first EP, DJs performing for the first time at an open air event, all of whom are wide eyed, optimistic and are ready to take on the world. I see them all the time on my travels, in the crowd, next to the DJ booth. They’re all the next generation.

At what point did you feel you’d found a following? Was it when Plus 8 started receiving international recognition?

Of course we knew early on that Plus 8 had a following by the attention we were getting through reviews, and the faxes we were receiving for larger and larger orders of our records, but even as we were touring in those early days it was still a bit intangible. I think when I really started to feel it was in late 1993 and 1994 with the Plastikman project, as we could all feel the impact of this more locally in the Detroit and Midwest area as we started to put together more and more of our own events. Seeing
kids driving from hours away to come to one of those early parties was really the start of something special. We soon started a membership type club to communicate with everyone (Plastikprodukts) and that small following has continued to grow ever since.

Do you ever look back at your career with a sense of nostalgia?

The weight of history is sometimes overbearing so I try not to think about it. People often say I should do FUSE again, and ask what happened to Plus 8. But I’ve had so many great experiences, successes and mistakes that it’s cool.

It sounds like you’re in a real period of clear thought.

I try not to think too much, but go with the feeling. My friends, my girlfriend and people who I work with are always trying to pull a decision out of me. There are so many things to think about it becomes impossible sometimes.

Who are you enjoying right now and for what reason?

One of my favourite artists right now is a guy from Berlin called Recondite. He was doing work with Scuba. They are making acid records that I would make if I were still making records.

The popularity of electronic music has never been greater. Do you feel that the music you represent is ever in danger of crossing over the popularity divide? Does the ‘underground’ tag remain as important as ever?

Electronic music has ebbed and flowed between being more obscure and being more popular for the past 25 years. Remember Adamski, remember Inner City’s Big Fun, or Good Life? Great music resonates to a larger and larger crowd and electronic music has continued to create incredible songs, amazing DJs, and wonderful producers time and time again. The scene continues at a breakneck speed, changing, developing and innovating, which is probably what keeps it one step ahead of becoming ‘too popular’. The general public wants and needs to be able to grab onto something, to examine it, and understand it, but electronic music moves too fast for that … thankfully! Underground? I think we moved beyond that tag a long time ago as our music resides on both sides of popular and obscure, with thousands of artists all experimenting in their own areas between those two poles.

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Catch Richie Hawtin at The Warehouse Project, Manchester on October 19th

Words: Thomas Frost

Site: m-nus.com

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