Backstage with Plastikman

Backstage with Plastikman

13 April, 2010 | 5.19AM

• Written by: Beatportal
• Filed under: Videos: m-nus, plastikman

Plastikman’s live tour continues this week at Southern California’s Coachella fest, where Richie Hawtin will close out the festival with his acid-drenched sensorial assault. It’s the first of only two dates in the U.S. — the second will be May 29 at Detroit’s Movement festival — and only the second performance so far this tour.

When Hawtin debuted his new Plastikman live show last month at Mannheim’s Time Warp festival, some punters may not have known what to expect. After all, Plastikman hadn’t performed live since 2004, with a one-off for Montreal’s MUTEK festival. Incredibly, the last Plastikman live set before that was way back in 1995. In the meantime, Hawtin’s fame as a DJ and Minus ringleader has long since eclipsed the iconic Plastikman brand. ("I love Richie Hawtin, but I knew nothing about Plastikman until now”, writes a poster on the Coachella forums.)

Hawtin can expect some new converts. Making up for lost time, he and his technical team are pulling out all the stops on this one. Armed with laptops, analog hardware and two or three Lemur controllers, he veers seamlessly from full-on stormers to the kind of creepy-crawly, slow-mo fare that always set Plastikman apart from more conventional acid acts. And in keeping with Plastikman’s original concept as a kind of total experience, the music is accompanied by an ultra-high-tech, fully synchronized light show for which all the usual superlatives — dizzying, overwhelming, mindmelting — seem inadequate. Finally, Plastikman’s new Synk iPhone app expands on the interactive elements introduced across Minus’ 2008 Contakt tour, drawing participants even deeper into the fold.

For an idea of what to expect, check the above footage from the Time Warp gig — and then go behind the scenes with footage from rehearsal sessions, newly posted over at Plastikman.com.

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