Spastik- Plastikman (Dubfire Rework)
Richie Hawtin’s reign as one of the world’s best DJs dates back to the year 1990. Over the last twenty years, he has won numerous awards: Greatest DJ of All Time, Best International DJ, Best Techno DJ, Best Live Act (Plastikman), Best DJ Innovator, and Best New Media Work. In the early 90’s he was an influential part of Detriot techno’s second wave of artists. By the mid-90’s, he was the leading figure of Minimal Techno and was best known for his abstract, minimal works under the alias Plastikman, a pseudonym he still uses today. Hawtin was at the forefront of incorporating laptops and digital mixing equipment into his live sets.
At the age of nine, Richie’s family moved across the pond, from England to LaSalle, Ontario (right across the river from Detroit). His father was a robotics technician and a knowledgeable fan of electronic music. Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream were often played in the Hawtin household. Richie began DJing in the Detroit clubs at the ripe age of 17 with a young palate that mixed house and techno.
With Canadian DJ John Acquaviva, he formed the label Plus 8 in 1990 to release his own tracks under the name F.U.S.E. He spent part of 2002 and 2003 living in New York City, and has since moved to Berlin, Germany. He said,
“I’d always wanted to move to Europe. I needed somewhere that was inspiring and where there were like-minded musicians and artists, somewhere you could still experiment with music and with life. Berlin is so liberal in so many different ways; there’s an amazing club scene, there’s a great development software tech scene, there are so many resources here.”
Since then, Hawtin has released music under aliases: Plastikman, F.U.S.E., Concept 1, Forcept 1, Circuit Breaker, Robotman, Chrome, Spark, Xenon, R.H.X., Jack Master, Richard Michaels, and UP!.
In 2010, Hawtin decided to bring Plastikman back into the public.
“I’ve watched a lot of live electronic shows recently and was really uninspired. Like any genre, techno has become quite commercial now that it’s got so huge. I felt it needed something heavier, darker and more intense [so I resurrected Plastikman].”
Though many of Plastikman’s tunes are 15+ years old, there is still a timelessness to them. Spastik and Helikopter still sound far ahead of today’s mire of minimal techno.
“I think I occupy this weird position between being popular and underground,” Richie continues. “I didn’t want this to be just some underground thing because what I want to achieve needs to work on a larger scale. This is why I’ve had a so called “schizophrenic year”. I’ve been alternating between the two personae of Plastikman and DJing as Richie Hawtin.”
Richie Hawtin has gone on step further to enhance his live set by created a new (free) iPhone/iPod app called SYNK. This is an experiment in audience-performer interaction, blurring the lines of perception and participation. SYNK users will participate in an experiment in audience-performer interaction aiming to blur the lines of perception and participation. They will connect to the PLASTIKMAN Wi-Fi network available at each show, and after being notified by a vibration triggered by certain moments in the performance, be able to contribute and interact by reorganizing word samples, viewing the venue from the Plastikman perspective, and seeing the realtime programming of the drum and percussive elements and effects. Be sure to download this app before hitting the Zoo Plastikman will be playing at the Zoo on Friday and Richie Hawtin will be performing on Sunday. Get excited! And Click here for more info about the iPhone/iPod app.
