Sep 13, 2008

Rhotation (46) Into BPM

Hello, it's been a busy week, with almost 1400 unique visits per day, and poor me having to get through all that re-uploading besides posting. Well the show must go on, and so here we are at the start of another Rhotation, and that means going into BPM . Todays post is all about a big favorite of mine, Richie Hawtin, some of you will remember this is not the first time i'm plugging him, i did so months ago here. Three more monikers and titles which show you what he can do, coming up. The range is 12 years, but if anything, he sounds even more essential in 2005 then during his early nineties breakthrough days. A true artist being DJ...

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While original Detroit technocrats like Juan Atkins and Derrick May were changing the face of electronic music in the mid-'80s, Richie Hawtin was growing up across the river in Windsor, Ontario. A British native born in Banbury 1970, he moved to Canada with his family at the age of nine. Introduced to '70s electronic/minimalist pioneers Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream by his father (who was a robotics engineer for General Motors), Hawtin began DJing at the age of 17 -- as DJ Richie Rich -- and soon landed gigs at Detroit hot-spots like the Shelter and the famed Music Institute, home to all-night club sessions by May and Kevin Saunderson.

Hawtin and +8's co-founder, John Acquaviva, began working together in 1989, originally to make a Derrick May megamix for use on the radio; they later emerged from Acquaviva's studio with several original recordings. The duo issued one single, "Elements of Tone" as the first release on +8 Records (credited to States of Mind), and sat back while many in the techno world puzzled over who was responsible. The label's later releases -- by Kenny Larkin, Jochem Paap (aka Speedy J) and Mark Gage (aka Vapourspace) in addition to various Hawtin/Acquaviva projects -- made the label famous for laboratory-precise techno based on slowly evolving and shifting acid lines. The aggressive sound matched the work of the label/artist collective Underground Resistance as the best techno to come out of Detroit in the early '90s.

His style formed by a fusion of the barest acid house and straitjacket-tight Detroit techno, Richie Hawtin became one of the most influential artists in the world of techno during the 1990s, even while sticking to out-of-date synth dinosaurs like the Roland TB-303 and TR-808. Hawtin combined lean percussion and equally spare acid lines into haunting techno anthems that kicked with more than enough power for the dancefloor while diverting headphone listeners as well. While even his early recordings were quite minimalistic, he streamlined the sound increasingly over the course of his recording career; from the early '90s to the end of the decade, Hawtin's material moved from the verge of the techno mainstream into a yawning abyss of dubbed-out echo-chamber isolationism, often jettisoning any semblance of a bass line or steady beat. Hawtin released material on his own +8 Records under several aliases -- some in tandem with co-founder John Acquaviva -- and made the label one of the best styled in Detroit techno of the 1990s. He earned his pedigrees from worldwide fans of techno for his best-known releases, as Plastikman (for NovaMute) and F.U.S.E. (for Warp/TVT).

The Plastikman project debuted in 1993 with two releases for +8: the seminal "Spastik" single and an album, Sheet One. Hawtin's first wide release, however, came with the alter-ego F.U.S.E. (short for Further Underground Subsonic Experiments). A more varied and melodic project than Plastikman (but not by much), F.U.S.E. released the album Dimension Intrusion for the British Warp Records in late 1993. As part of the label's Artificial Intelligence series, Dimension Intrusion was also licensed to Wax Trax!/TVT for release in America. (Hawtin joined such ambient-techno heroes as the Aphex Twin, Black Dog, Autechre and B12, all receiving their wide-issue debuts.) Later, NovaMute signed an agreement with +8 and another Hawtin-founded label, Probe; Sheet One was reissued in 1994, followed by the second Plastikman LP, Musik. Much more restrained than Sheet One, the album fit in well with the growing ambient-techno movement. All told, Hawtin was responsible for the release of three albums and a good-sized EP in the span of just one year.

That impressive schedule was shattered in 1995, when Hawtin was entangled in a silly U.S.labor law that denied him access with his tools.Refused entrance for more than a year, he lost his inspirational grounding with the Detroit scene and found it difficult to continue recording for his third Plastikman album, Klinik. While he waited for re-entry, Hawtin spent time setting up the sub-label Definitive, and continued to DJ around the world. Though he recorded scattered singles for +8 and related imprints, his only full-length release that year was a killer entry in the Mixmag Live! series, taken from a DJ set recorded at the Building in Windsor. By the time he was able to return to America, he had changed his musical direction and eventually abandoned the Klinik album.

In early 1998, he released his third Plastikman LP, Consumed, which proved to be just as brutally shadowed as the Concept 1 material. The continued experimentalist direction showed Hawtin coming full circle, back to his position on the leading edge of intelligent techno. 99;s , Decks, EFX & 909, defacto the first in what has become his DE9 series, is the next step for Richie Hawtin after his Mixmag live album and the increasing minimalism of Consumed .Hawtin displays not only his talents as a mixer but also as a producer, using turntables, an effects processor, and a Roland pedal, plus a TR-909 drum machine for added beats. In May 2000, Hawtin performed at the first Detroit Electronic Festival alongside Derrick May, Juan Atkins and other techno masterminds. More than 200,000 people attended from all over the world.

He spent part of 2002 and 2003 living in New York City, and has since moved to Berlin, Germany.. Hawtin collaborated with choreographer Enzo Cosimi to create a composition called "9.20" for the 2006 Winter Olympics opening ceremony. In 2007, Slices DVD magazine launched a series of biographies called "Pioneers of Electronic Music", with the first issue being a roughly 60 minute documentary dedicated to the life of Richie Hawtin. The film follows his career from his early days crossing the border to Detroit to his current life in Berlin, interviewing many colleagues and family members.

Hawtin has recorded music under the aliases Plastikman, F.U.S.E, Concept 1, Circuit Breaker, The Hard Brothers, Hard Trax, Jack Master, and UP!. He also recorded and performed, in combination with other artists, under group names such as 0733, Cybersonik, Final Exposure, Spawn and States Of Mind.


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FUSE - Dimension Intrusion ( 93 ^ 434mb)

A Richie Hawtin pseudonym which predated even the more famed Plastikman, F.U.S.E. debuted in 1991 with the fourth single on Hawtin's +8 Records, "Approach & Identify." Given wider issue later that year on the +8 compilation From Our Minds to Yours, F.U.S.E. released several more singles during 1992, then the album Dimension Intrusion in 1993. Released on Warp Records, the album gained Hawtin many converts, especially when it was released in America as well, by TVT Records. While Hawtin increasingly concentrated on his Plastikman project, new F.U.S.E. releases became more and more rare. Dimension Intrusion alternates minimalist stompers with more melodic, contemplative material. The latter made Hawtin a perfect match for the other producers in Warp's Artificial Intelligence series (B12, Black Dog, Polygon Window).



01 - A New Day (3:53)
02 - F.U. (7:45)
03 - Slac (3:17)
04 - Dimension Intrusion (4:04)
05 - Substance Abuse (5:09)
06 - Train-Trac.1 (6:42)
07 - Another Time (Revisited) (6:22)
08 - Theychx (13:27)
09 - UVA (8:07)
10 - Mantrax (8:01)
11 - Nitedrive (3:28)
12 - Into The Space (5:30)
13 - Logikal Nonsense (1:13)

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Plastikman - Musik (94 ^419mb)

For Musik, the second full-length album in the Plastikman series, he powers each track with minimal yet harsh 909 percussion and adds plenty of crazed 303 acid lines, wonderfully re-creating the acid techno motifs of Sheet One. This time, however, Hawtin veers away from the pervading ambience of that album, giving Musik a much livelier feel instead, particularly toward the beginning and end of the album, where the tempos reach dancefloor intensity. While the opening 20 minutes had been lively and energetic, the closing 20 minutes are foreboding and dark, even downright chilling at times. Musik masterfully covers all aspects of the minimal techno spectrum, from acidic anthems to ultra-minimal explorations and back, in the process showcasing Hawtin's staggering command of the Roland 303 and 909 drum machines as well as his brilliant grasp of album-level continuity.



01 - Konception (8:11)
02 - Plastique (13:03)
03 - Kriket (5:38)
04 - Fuk (5:05)
05 - Outbak (5:10)
06 - Ethnik (9:05)
07 - Plasmatik (5:23)
08 - Goo (2:00)
09 - Marbles (11:07)
10 - Lasttrak (8:22)

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Richie Hawtin - DE9 | Transitions ( 05 ^425mb)

Extending the concept behind 2001's DE9: Closer to the Edit, Transitions takes advantage of the increased possibilities brought forth by the software Ableton Live. Richie Hawtin further distorts the notion of a standard selection, combining often-treated elements from several tracks at once, to such an extent that he gives the amalgams his own titles. The Detroit Grand Pubahs' "Dr. Bootygrabber," False's "River Camping," Galoppierende Zuversicht's "Linguini al Denta," Heartthrob's "Golum," Ricardo Villalobos' "A5," Sleep Archive's "Elephant Island," and three of Hawtin's own productions are swept into this brand-new vortex and come out as "Minimission," throwing off the common response to hearing a track on a mix and desiring to hunt it down on its original state.

In other words, you won't be able to obtain any of the commercially available tracks within that track and hear them the same way. Villalobos, who shows up over 20 times and probably wouldn't be able to identify all of his appearances, because a lot of sources are used for a single note or blip. But the real testament to Hawtin's vision is that the mix is more linear than any other released in 2005, riding a steady gradient that could fool non-geeks into thinking that this is a standard-form techno mix with no obvious inclusions, even though dozens of up-to-date favorites and a few decades-old classics factor in. Stripped of all context and background information, Transitions remains a thoroughly thrilling, multi-functional disc that places early-2000s minimal techno in the best possible light.



01 - Welcomm(In) (3:48)
02 - TZ Entry Point (2:46)
03 - Adding And (1:07)
04 - Subtracting (2:00)
05 - Prebuild (1:45)
06 - Seiltänzer (3:00)
07 - Visioning (6:52)
08 - We (All) Search (2:45)
09 - Jupiter Lander (0:30)
10 - Reduction And (3:00)
11 - Seduction (1:22)
12 - Minimal Master (4:00)
13 - All 4 Du*** (3:00)
14 - Tonarzt (5:01)
15 - The Tunnel (8:26)
16 - Minimission (5:14)
17 - Noch Nah(r) (4:11)
18 - Weiter Noch (5:44)
19 - Where is Mayday (4:00)
20 - The Hole (2:11)
21 - (D)ecaying Beauty (4:39)

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All downloads are in * ogg-7 (224k) or ^ ogg-9(320k), artwork is included , if in need get the nifty ogg encoder/decoder here !

6 comments:

sp73 said...

I can remember seeing Ritchie Hawtin doing a decks & fx gig in the early nineties,intense but brilliant.Cheers for all the top posts.

sp73 said...

Actually thinking about it,it may have just been decks cos the guy was so hot with his cross fading & use of EQ's.Like I said it was the early nineties & I would have been a little frazzled.

MUMHRA said...

Lovely post I'm a bit of a Richie obsessive but I found a lot of that really informative!

Anonymous said...

Hi Rho,

Can you please re-up Plastikman's Musik ?
Thank you; JF

Anonymous said...

Looking forward to hearing 'Musik', many thanks for the new upload.

-Brian

Anonymous said...

A re-up of the Hawtin Albums would be great. Thanks in advance and keep rollin' ;-)