RICHIE HAWTIN WordsRichie Richie Hawtin and Thomas H Green Photos www.alexanderkoch.com 0123456789 Hawtin 0123456789 new horizons Richie Hawtin has always been at the leading edge of innovation in all aspects R e of electronic music. Now more than ever, he’s searching for fresh horizons and new MM joe pli worlds to conquer. Who better to launch the first ever Mixmag Live? [[1L]] MARCH 2012 RICHIE HAWTIN Plastikman @ Brixton Academy, London from his lively blue eyes. He’s in dance music’s warlock, derive from his family’s move on November premier league these days, an immediately 14 1979 from the Northamptonshire village of recognisable name atop bills at clubs, raves and Middleton Cheney to LaSalle, Ontario, Canada, festivals and someone who is these days recognised when he was nine years old. even in the least likely of places. “My main memory of Middleton Cheney is a R te “I took a vacation on the coast of Morocco with strong sense of extended family, cousins, aunts, S ee my girlfriend,” he says in his relaxed Canadian uncles, a very close-knit family, everyone getting M accent, “walking though streets without pavements, together regularly,” he says. “That’s why the Canadian eule so far away from our world – and someone was like, move was such a big change: becoming isolated, M ‘Are you Richie Hawtin? Can I get your autograph?’.” introverted. The ‘DJ Richie Hawtin’ aspect of me Ann De : He laughs – “But it’s alright, people who come up are reflects what I remember of myself before I went S long term fans, not ‘I know that guy’s face from a to Canada: having all these people around, being boot D 0123456789 n 0123456789 A magazine.’ It’s a nicer sort of fame.” in elementary school, the cool kid in class who CH As Richie Hawtin he is the DJ who brings techno everyone talked to. Then suddenly I was the weird t to party, a long-term regular on the decks at foreigner who spoke differently. That was the Wa ASH, Cocoon, inventor of minimal, and the man who beginning of my introverted side. I found a n y: y: On STAGe IN Brixton Academy a giant alien startlingly pre-empted modern DJ technology on his connection to the rest of world again electronically: R craft of spinning light is taking off. Or is it a wild, astounding ‘Decks/FX’ mix series, showing everyone Plastikman, hiding behind machines.” ewelle j luminescent fairground carousel? Whatever it is, it’s the possibilities and even helping design some of the Hawtin wasn’t the only one isolated by the move. 9, R playing Plastikman’s bass-addled 2003 loon tune kit involved. As Plastikman, symbolised by a sinister His father, a robotics technician, buried himself in be M u ‘Ping Pong’. Behind this retina-frying semi-circular psychedelic sprite logo, he is an electronic musician music and technology and encouraged his son’s n : RS LED curtain – for that’s what it really is – glimpses of par excellence, maintaining an underground agenda interest in it. Hawtin’s younger brother Matthew was e S a silhouetted figure can sometimes be seen, flitting of techno propulsion and avant-garde dissonance also a beneficiary and has gone onto be actively ou R back and forth between banks of kit, controlling over six albums (and two compilations). As the involved in Hawtin’s career, both in music and artistic , t RA the whole audio-visual experience. For over 20 business mind behind Plus 8 Records and Minus he design, as well as his own art career. Hawtin b years Plastikman has been messing with our heads, has nurtured a plethora of talent into the limelight, describes him as “team leader on Plastikman live, uM making us dance. Once, long ago, he was a baldie, from Speedy J in the early 90s to Gaiser in the ‘Arkives’ [box set] and richiehawtin.com over the last en et M u l with glasses, drum machines and a relentless 2010s. He does all this, paradoxically, by always two years.” His parents are also actively on side, : t R strobe, twisting rave brains to mush, but now he’s changing and always staying the same. Last autumn, attending the Sónar festival every year as well as i SH - t gone visually interplanetary on his year-long for instance, many were shocked when DJ/ multiple other events, including Bestival and , Plastikman 1.5 tour. producers Magda, Troy Pierce and Marc Houle, the [laughs], “my mum was in the booth dancing with MA Do R “Yes! YES! YEEEAAAH!” screams a pop-eyed, core of Minus, the ones who originally came with Magda on the Terrace at Amnesia.” i pogoing man, closely followed by a female voice, Hawtin from Detroit via New York to Berlin, left to AM t: D t: R and soon all is a sea of whistles and whoops. The form their own Items & Things label. i SH man behind the curtain, the wizard of odd, the “You try and stay in control, but evolution is RS techno phenomenon causing this commotion from always around us,” says Hawtin, completely sanguine. one continent to the next, is Richie Hawtin, a true “Minus started in ’98 but really didn’t get going until ichie wea original and dance music perennial. He has, he will we found a group of people I wanted to support and R el tell us, reached the end of one era, but is about to develop. Marc Houle, Magda, Troy Pierce, even on a S Ci take off into the next chapter – into the future and different level, Marco Carola – these are people I onward to new horizons. If anyone can, Hawtin can. felt connected to on a friendship basis. I believed in ake-up m / their artistic ideas, and wanted to introduce them to R ai h iven THE noise he’s capable of making, the world. There’s a point in artistic development S e Richie Hawtin, 41, is a calm presence. He where you must move away – at some bittersweet AR So sits on a sofa backstage before his gig at moment you have to graduate, take everything A il the Brixton Academy, a lean figure in a you’ve learned, and stand up for your own ideals. AM C G thin grey jumper, dark jeans and baseball boots, That’s really where we’re at with Minus.” t: S i L “You try to stay in control but emanating a friendly but businesslike manner. Hawtin rarely talks specifics and is useless for Sty , Around him on the walls are large framed photos juicy anecdotes or gossip. He speaks in terms of R e of bands, such as The Clash and Faithless, who concepts, broad ideas and occasional metaphors, MM have rocked the venue. His hands reach for his very much his own censor. He is, however, happy to joe pli evolution is all around us” blonde fringe, a gentler variation on the severe, analyse himself, reckoning that Richie Hawtin, the asymmetrical cut of a few years back, and push it party DJ, and Plastikman, the shadowy studio photo: photo: 1970 1972 1979 1986 1987 1988 1989 timeline June 4 1970: Richard Sole sibling and occasional Moves to LaSalle, Ontario, Attends Sandwich Starts buying records in Starts being paid to DJ, Meets and hits it off with Canadian DJ Michael Hawtin born in collaborator, Matthew, born. Canada. Michael Hawtin Secondary High, by night Detroit and begins DJing $20 ‘gas money’ per gig. John Acquaviva (born Italy, 1963). The duo The evolution of Banbury, Oxfordshire, to takes a job at General tuning into seminal under the name Richie Rich Starts producing his own record a mix for Derrick May’s radio show, Michael & Brenda Hawtin, Motors. LaSalle is a suburb Detroit radio broadcasts in a basement club called mix shows for Detroit’s start recording together and form Plus 8 Richie Hawtin a music-loving robotics of Windsor just over the by The Wizard (aka Jeff Mills) and Duane ‘In-the-Mix’ Bradley. Is The Shelter, as the warm-up 96.3 FM radio station. Records which becomes one of the technician and a Detroit River, across the drawn to the music of Detroit techno trinity Juan Atkins, Kevin for Scott ‘Go-Go’ Gordon. 1990s’ most vital techno labels, releasing teacher, respectively. US border from the city of Saunderson and Derrick May. Sneaks into The Music Institute, Kenny Larkin, Speedy J and others, as well as Hawtin and the same name. The Majestic, St Andrew’s Hall, and other key Detroit clubs. Acquaviva’s Cybersonik collaboration with Daniel Bell. [[1L]] MARCH 2012 www.mixmag.net www.mixmag.net MARCH 2012 [[2R]] RICHIE HAWTIN He TEENAGE Hawtin was famously into inspirations Detroit techno in the mid-80s, becoming a DJ, setting up Plus 8 with John Richie introduces the people exploring new horizons T Acquaviva and setting the techno world “My mum was on the terrace at alight with Plastikman’s birth on the ‘Spastik’ single and ‘Sheet One’ album in 1993, the latter arriving in a reasonably realistic, the timing Matthew Hawtin ‘Dimensions’) cover that looked like blotter acid. was Swiss clock perfect and showcases his work from 1993 “‘Sheet One’ as an album transcends ‘Spastik’,” the programming and sound to the present and shows Amnesia, dancing with Magda” design possibilities went well Matthew’s collaborative says Hawtin, ruminatively. “‘Spastik’ wasn’t on the beyond what any mere mortal relationship between art and CD version of ‘Sheet One’, and most people I know drummer could create.