Faz is balancing on the boarders between Dub techno, Detroit, Jazz and Disco. Tight mixing and contagious rhythms spiced with some Funk is what makes this DJ one to keep an eye on. The DJ-mix Sauna Session vol. 1 is a crusade though the deep swamps of Dub and Detroit Techno.
At the Beatfreax headquarter summer is kicking in; sun, beachparties, flipflops, yihaa!!! Starting this week we’ll be previewing the coming festival season with our infamous annual festival guide!
Zoals elk jaar sluit TodaysArt het festivalseizoen af met een passende climax door meer dan 200 artiesten vanuit alle hoeken van de wereld naar het centrum van de hofstad te halen voor een weekend van unieke artistieke showcases.
Artist, DJ, conceptualist and ambassador, more than anyone else in modern electronic music, Richie Hawtin has relentlessly proved himself to be a true innovator. The one-man mogul behind acclaimed Techno imprints Plus 8 & Minus sends signals out all over the world from his HQ in an old fire station in Windsor, Ontario just across the border from Detroit Techno City. The signals are constantly evolving, his Plastikman persona gave Techno a unique face with a series of four ruthlessly minimal albums of skeletal beauty, while breathtaking festival live sets at Glastonbury and Tribal Gathering helped invent stadium Techno. His "Decks, EFX & 909" album released on novamute in 1999 expanded the concept of a DJ mix album beyond the imagination of most DJs. As a pioneering DJ and party promoter he was banned from entering America for 18 months. Yet this jet-setting international futurist is as at home exhibiting alongside acclaimed modern sculptor Anish Kapoor as he is headlining a bush rave with Josh Wink somewhere in Western Australia.
More of a decade into his career, it's no surprise that the every-youthful Hawtin is up to something new. This time, he's reconstructing the DJ mix album even further with "DE9: Closer To The Edit", the groundbreaking new album set for release on the novamute label in September 2001.
His first mix album, for the Mixmag Live series, saw him use extra effects and drum machines as long ago as 1993, Decks, EFX & 909' cut laser-style between tracks and now, "DE9: Closer To The Edit", sees Hawtin use his sampler to tear the skin and the flesh from the tracks until there's just a skeleton left, which he reassembles into a kind of Frankenstein's robot. The result is a mix album like you've never heard before.
Hawtin describes this unique process "I recorded, sampled, cut and spliced over 100 tracks down into their most basic components. I ended up with over 300 loops, ranging in different lengths. I started to recreate and reinterpret each track and then put the pieces back together, as if an audio jigsaw puzzle using effects and edits as the glue between each piece".
A classic like Carl Craig's 4 My Peepz' (under his Paperclip People guise) breathes in and out in less than a minute, like a lonely spirit lost on the hard drive.
"I don't like mix CDs, everyone's being lazy, so I gotta do something different," says Hawtin. "Some people think it's about me using some extra equipment a drum machine and some effects - but it's a whole philosophy really. 'Let's take it to the extreme, to somewhere that's it never been before' "
Hawtin believes the whole DJ thing is stuck in a groove. So beyond "DE9 &" he is championing a new DJ system developed in Holland called Final Scratch, with Plus 8 partner John Acquaviva. Dance and Electronic music is the most technology-based genre of all, but to Hawtin's frustration it's still rooted in a music delivery system developed in the 19th Century: the gramophone record. Even though more and more DJs play tracks burnt onto CD, vinyl still rules because it's easier and instinctive to control. Final Scratch links up to the normal two-turntables-and-mixer set up, but lets you play tracks stored on a laptop using a special piece of vinyl as a mouse', or controller. You can access literally thousands of tracks, and scratch, cut, slow and mix them just like normal records using this special piece of vinyl. It's nothing short of revolutionary. As Hawtin enthuses: "It feels and acts like a regular record." He's already using Final Scratch to play unreleased tracks by Josh Wink and Speedy J, and special re-edits of some of Hawtin's classics and personal faves.
Born in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England, on June 4th 1970 Hawtin emigrated with his family when he was nine to Windsor, Ontario, where his dad Mick still works as a robot technician in the General Motors car factory (his mother, Brenda, is in real estate). Richie cheekily borrowed his dad's persona for his house alias Robotman. His brother Matthew, who shares the Windsor fire station studio complex with Richie, is a visual artist. By 15 Richie was creeping out of the house to cross the border and go clubbing in Detroit. By 17 he was DJing at The Shelter, a dark basement club where he mixed House and Techno with Industrial music by Nitzer Ebb and Front 242. He had his own show on Detroit's 96.3FM inspired by a late '80s Detroit radio DJ called The Wizard, now better known as Jeff Mills.
As a teenager Hawtin, already into Breakdancing and Electro, was stirred by the radically beautiful machine music being fashioned by Detroit Techno pioneers like Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson. In 1989 he set up Plus 8 Records with John Acquaviva to release their own tracks and push new artists. They started running parties in Detroit. But far from welcoming them, the tight-knit Detroit Techno scene initially turned a cold shoulder on the two renegade Canadians.
"It pissed a lot of people off because there wasn't anyone else in the city doing it it took someone from the outside to come in and say, Look, wake up,'" Richie recalls. "These guys [May, Atkins and Saunderson] have left. They're doing their thing overseas."
Plus 8 began to gather momentum with a richly varied catalogue of hard-nosed, cutting edge Techno from artists like Speedy J, Dan Bell and Kenny Larkin. Along with the resurgence of Detroit's confrontational Underground Resistance, this marked the second wave of Detroit Techno. "We all put the focus back on Detroit for a while, we didn't want to make traditional Techno, we were inspired by traditional Techno. Derick, Kevin and Juan had sent these waves all over the world and we were the first to feel the rebounds of their ripples".
By 1993 Richie Hawtin's Detroit parties had become legendary intense affairs as freaky dancing clubbers lost themselves in strange, dark warehouses transformed into disorientating warrens by walls of black plastic sheeting. Inspired by this, Hawtin elected to take Techno one stage further and develop his virtual Plastikman alter ego: a red and black gremlin that is tattooed on his forearm. He didn't want a collection of tracks
Hawtin was already shifting identities like a spy changing roles: his 1992 album "Dimension Intrusion", under his Fuse alias, had played a key part in the Warp label's groundbreaking "Artificial Intelligence" armchair-Techno series, but he wanted to reach further. He remembered the strange shapes that his friends threw at those warehouse parties, the different creatures they almost became. "Like plasticine," he says. "That was the whole idea of Plastikman, it was all very viscous and pliable and moveable." Plastikman wasn't just a clever alter ego it was a role for you to try on too. The sound was rubbery and sparse
Hawtin developed a Plastikman live show that still tours the world. Huge audiences at Glastonbury and Tribal Gathering twitched to its twittering insect rhythms, lost in a soundtrack far freakier than anything else those events had to offer. In 1994 the second album on novamute, "Musik", let a little human warmth seep onto the clattering Plastikman rhythms, but despite its closing robot lullaby Lasttrak', it was, if anything, even more discomforting.
Just as the little Plastikman gremlin was becoming an international phenomenon, American immigration officials banned Hawtin from entering America for working illegally. He was barred from entering the States for 18 months. It was a devastating experience.
"My girlfriend lived there and most of my experiences were in Detroit, my friends were there and all of my musical inspiration was there and suddenly it was like, See that building over there? You can see your inspiration, but you can't go there.'" Now, typically, he believes the ban had its benefits. It was at this point the Chemicals Brothers and Underworld began to break out of the dance world and into a wider Rock arena. Hawtin now wonders whether he might have gone further down the stadium Techno route. Instead, grounded in Windsor, he went back to the studio to reinvent. "When that happened it was the worst day of my life," he says now, "and it was one of the best things too."
The next Plastikman project, Klinik', wouldn't come together. "I had tried to follow those records up but there was feelings of pressure at that point," he says now. Stuck in the studio, depressed, Hawtin set himself a new challenge and gave it a deadline. He pressurised himself back into action, releasing a series of Concept' EPs based on the months of the year. Each release would feature two tracks recorded in one month only using a set template of sounds. They would be released and then forgotten. The discipline of producing 24 tracks in 12 months rewired the creative circuits. "It progressed me to a different audience, it progressed me with effects which came into my sets and it progressed me into more of this spatial environment I was trying to get to," says Hawtin.
It was the starting point for his last Plastikman album "Consumed", which replaced the angry black and red gremlin with dark, abstract sleeve art and the tense rhythms with swathes of bass and melody. Released on novamute in 1998, it was acclaimed in countries like France where conceptual artists are traditionally celebrated. "Consumed" elevated Hawtin to a new status, he was now not just an international Techno star, but a contemporary artist. Asked to contribute to a French Millennium Exhibition celebrating different ideas of beauty, Hawtin created a musical installation based around the clicks, hisses and pops of vinyl a beautiful sound, he argued, to his generation. The exhibition also featured the work of world famous sculptor, Anish Kapoor, who Hawtin had long been a fan. In fact "Consumed"'s unique textures had been inspired by Kapoor's beguiling, futuristic, curved shapes and the cover art echoed the sculptor's famous obelisk. "I was walking around those sculptures and putting my head into some of them. They had like a sonic quality like chambers of nothingness and that's exactly what I was trying to hear. Suddenly I was able to walk around a physical version of what I wanted to do musically." Hawtin was also moved by the mournful purple washes of the late Mark Rothko, which now hang in London's Tate Modern. Rothko's work, says Hawtin, "is very, very subtle, just washes of texture. It kind of gave me a visual perspective of what I was trying to get out of my head, sonically. On a flat surface."
This is where Hawtin is at now. Constantly touring all over the world and keeping fans updated on his world wide DJ travels via his website diaries
"The good Techno musicians enjoy having a good time, but can see beyond it," Hawtin notes. "It's the closest to a contemporary art form." With Jeff Mills providing an installation to the recent Sonar event in Barcelona, Germany's Thomas Brinkmann moving from conceptual art into conceptual Techno, and increasing connections between the two worlds.
As Techno and art move closer together Hawtin sees it as a logical part of his constant reinvention. "It's about setting a standard for yourself and progressing yourself. Showing people you can do something interesting that's more than just dance music."
What is your feeling on the dutch party scene? You've been playing in holland for a long time, did you notice any changes, and how does it compare to other countries you play in?
Stilstaan is het nieuwe dansen. Maar ik ben retro. (c)
You travel all over the world and you play using various kinds of digital aplications. In holland a lot of people have adverse feelings towards this development werin vinyl becomes less and less important. Do you notice anything of this resistance to change and does it vary per country if it does?
Do you play (or would like to) any kind of non-electronic instrument(s), and if so, wich one(s)?
What kind of music do you like/listen beside electronic music? And does this music inspire you in the things you are doing?
Why these questions? Well, i'm pretty curious if there's more than just electronic music for someone who seems to be so into technology and futuristic stuff...
Let me explain to you just what i mean, let me teach y'all a lesson 'bout this drummachine!
Found a nice interview with hawtin. Maybe inspiring for some questions or as background info for the intervieuwer
Richie Hawtin
Richie Hawtin lives an enviably stylish existence in an unlikely and unexpected place. His refurbished home sits across from a throbbing factory in a spare, industrial zone of Windsor, Ontario. The 97-year-old building was once a firehouse in the days when its firewagons were drawn by horses. But in the 21st century, what used to be a hayloft has been transformed into Hawtin's striking, uncluttered, red-and-black apartment; the horses lived directly below in what's now his state-of-the-art recording studio.
More than a decade after his first release, "Elements of Tone" ? under the moniker States of Mind, on his own Plus 8 label (1990) ? Hawtin is one of the world's most revered and popular techno artists. Traveling around the world while pushing his music's creative boundaries, Hawtin has taken the taut, lean sound of classic Detroit techno to new heights and new places.
"Being away from the hustle and bustle of all the large cities allows me the space and time to reflect. It also gives me a different perspective. I love being in cities like London, Frankfurt or Tokyo," says Hawtin. "But I live and record in Windsor."
The oldest son of Brenda and Michael Hawtin, Richard Michael Hawtin was born on June 4, 1970 in Banbury, Oxon, England. His dad, a robotics technician for General Motors, and his mum, a teacher-turned-real estate agent, moved the family to the Canadian suburbs of Detroit when Richie was nine.
While his seventh- and eighth-grade schoolmates were getting deeply into rock'n'roll, Richie spent his afternoons fiddling with rudimentary home computers like the early Commodore PET. Perhaps because of his interest in electronics, Hawtin's first musical fascination was for early electro and breakdance records. He suggests that, from his young perspective, electronic music was different, but it wasn't alien ? in fact, he says he found it "comforting."
Hawtin soon got turned on to the progressive electronic sounds of Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk, whose records he first discovered in his dad's LP collection. Yet even as his musical world expanded, Hawtin's teenage years gave little inkling of his career to come. He recalls his first job as "corn detassling," followed by equally mundane stints at McDonald's and a video store.
At 15, Hawtin began sneaking out of the house, heading across the Detroit River ? and over the U.S. border ? to see concerts in Motown's St. Andrews Hall. At 17, he was already DJing at the Shelter, a dark, low-ceilinged basement club beneath St. Andrews that he was too young to attend as a legal patron. There he spun a mix of house and early techno, augmented by heavy doses of industrial favorites like Nitzer Ebb, Skinny Puppy, Severed Heads and Front 242. After playing a year for free, Hawtin finally turned pro when the club began paying him $20 a night in gas money.
But radio proved as valuable an influence on Hawtin as clubbing. "Detroit radio in the late '80s was incredibly progressive," he says. "This was how I was first got exposed to house and techno." Eventually, he wound up with his own Friday night show on Detroit's 96.3 FM, showcasing mixes he'd create in his home studio. But early on, Hawtin spent many late nights listening to the Wizard, a mysterious underground radio DJ. The Wizard turned out to be Detroit techno legend Jeff Mills, and the pioneering electronic tracks he played by Juan Atkins and Derrick May found their way into Hawtin's growing record collection.
Hawtin was startled at first to realize that Atkins, May and other favorites (like Kevin Saunderson) were based in Detroit. But in 1989, a chance encounter with May at local college station CJAM inspired Hawtin to move toward setting up his own label and releasing his own tracks. Plus 8, the label Hawtin launched with partner John Acquaviva, proved to be the seminal imprint of Detroit's second wave of techno.
Though Hawtin has been deeply inspired by the city of Detroit ã its music, its creative energy and even its vacant spaces ã he sees his work apart from it as well. "Coming home to Windsor at the end of a night out gave me a unique viewpoint, musically, which is quite different from the other, more traditional Detroit techno artists."
That sensibility infused Plus 8's varied and adventurous releases. Along with records from Kenny Larkin, Dan Bell, Speedy J and others, Hawtin's own discs (as FUSE, States of Mind and Plastikman) propelled his blossoming role as a DJ. His hectic schedule forced him to drop out of the University of Windsor, where he was studying film, in the middle of his second year. But even as demand for his appearances grew throughout the Midwest and Europe, Hawtin took time to shore up his reputation at home, promoting now-legendary parties such as Heaven & Hell, Spastik and more.
Having sharpened his DJ skills and shaped his music into a refined and distinctive form of minimalist techno, Hawtin made a major leap forward in the mid-1990s when he began augmenting his live sets with the Roland 909 drum machine and other electronic effects. He especially recalls a momentous gig as Plastikman Live, at England's 1995 Glastonbury Festival, as a watershed in his performing career.
A late-1990s hiatus led to some creative rethinking. Hawtin suspended the Plus 8 label and launched the M-nus imprint as a home exclusively for his own recordings. That set the stage for his stripped-down, nearly ambient 1998 M-nus/novamute CD, Consumed, as well as its elaborate, all-night release party ? concurrent events that cemented Hawtin's place at the forefront of contemporary electronic music.
When he's not globetrotting on the international DJ circuit, there's no place Richie Hawtin would rather be than back home in Windsor. He shares his former firestation there with a vast record collection, two Siamese cats named Spaz and Miss, and the visual arts studio of his brother, Matthew (a talented minimalist in his own right). But with Windsor wedged in the frigid breezeway between Lake Erie and Lake St. Claire, there's not much to do during the harsh Ontario winters but stay in and make tracks.
"I do most of my recording in winter," Hawtin admits. "I like the winter... how sparse it is, how cold, and how everything seems to be so much more specific and detailed. There must be some connection between that environment and my music."
FIVE RECORDS THAT CHANGED RICHIE HAWTIN'S LIFE:
"Acid Trax" Phuture
"It Is What It Is" Rhythim Is Rhythim
"Pacific" 808 State
"Jack Your Body" Steve Hurley
"Amenity" Link (Global Communication)
RICHIE HAWTIN: TECHNOLOGIST
Richie Hawtin recalls that his dad, a certified electrical technician, was always assembli
Artist, DJ, conceptualist and ambassador, more than anyone else in modern electronic music, Richie Hawtin has relentlessly proved himself to be a true innovator. The one-man mogul behind acclaimed Techno imprints Plus 8 & Minus sends signals out all over the world from his HQ in an old fire station in Windsor, Ontario just across the border from Detroit Techno City. The signals are constantly evolving, his Plastikman persona gave Techno a unique face with a series of four ruthlessly minimal albums of skeletal beauty, while breathtaking festival live sets at Glastonbury and Tribal Gathering helped invent stadium Techno. His "Decks, EFX & 909" album released on novamute in 1999 expanded the concept of a DJ mix album beyond the imagination of most DJs. As a pioneering DJ and party promoter he was banned from entering America for 18 months. Yet this jet-setting international futurist is as at home exhibiting alongside acclaimed modern sculptor Anish Kapoor as he is headlining a bush rave with Josh Wink somewhere in Western Australia. 
