Richie Hawtin loves techno

Richie Hawtin loves techno

20 August, 2008 | 2.15AM

• Written by: Industry Boy
• Filed under: Music News: contakt, cube

Richie Hawtin has been flying the flag for techno for over 15 years, from his early releases as F.U.S.E. and Plastikman, to his groundbreaking releases ‘Decks, EFX & 909’ (1999) and ‘DE9: Closer To The Edit’ (2001).

As label boss of Minus, Hawtin has been the driving force behind what is arguably techno’s most successful record label.

Beatportal decided it was about time to pick Richie Hawtin’s brain and find out his inner thoughts about techno, the art of a live performance, and where he sees the future of techno turning.

“Techno to me should sound as if it came from tomorrow,” says Richie Hawtin.

“Techno music has always been about taking something from the present and manipulating it to make it sound as if its from the future.

“It’s about grabbing bits and pieces from tracks today and making something new.”

Electronic music and its DJs have always been obsessed by the ‘new’, and techno was the catalyst for the fascinating addiction to innovation that now precedes it.

Richie Hawtin believes that that fascination stems from mankind’s yearning for new experiences; an intrinsic need to explore and to learn from new encounters.

“As a DJ, I think it’s my job to create experiences worth remembering,” he says.

“It’s like your first kiss or the first time your child walks; the first time may not always be the best, but you’re never going to forget it!”

There is a theory that people involved in electronic music like the music because it is stimulating and its followers have varying degrees of Attention Deficit Disorder.

Richie isn’t convinced.

“I have a low attention span certainly, and I hope I get bored quicker than my audience, and hopefully that keeps me one step ahead of them,” he says.

“I don’t believe all that ‘techno is for A.D.D. sufferers’ stuff; maybe people are just curious?  Or perhaps have misplaced energy.’

Richie Hawtin’s desire to stay one step ahead of his audience must have led to the creation of his Cube/Contakt events.

The live shows involve the Minus family playing together as a group on stage, some as DJs and others as live performers, with special LED visual and light show and artist/audience interactive possibilities offered by the futuristic-looking Cube.

The shows have been controversial and some have even mocked the Minus Stars Wars-esque promotion of Contakt, but if one ever needed proof of an artist pushing boundaries you’d need to look no further than the storm and scorn of the public surrounding him.

“We wanted to create a next generation performance, integrating and connecting the performers on stage as well as the audience members, involving each of them through the use of the interesting communication technologies,” says Richie.

“It is something we have experimented with before with the Narod Niki project, but I believe that we are taking it down a new tangent that we didn’t explore with that project,” he says, referring to the Ricardo Villalobos-led group that saw Thomas Franzman (Dimbiman), Dandy Jack, Cabanne, Akufen, Luciano, Richie Hawtin, Dan Bell, and Villalobos performing live together on stage with Robert Henke aka Monolake on central mixer duty.

If Richie Hawtin could have anything he wanted, regardless of the current state of technology, what would a live techno performance look like?

“Well my imagination is still bounded by what is possible,” he says, with a laugh.

“I would love to have control over an immersion-styled environment where there is no separation between the crowd and the performer. I hope that Contakt is the beginning of that idea!”

“In the old Detroit days we actually experimented with motion and heat sensors to give people a feeling that they were connected to the whole thing…so some of these ideas are not new ones for us, it’s just that now finally the technology is catching up and giving us the possibilities to really test them out.”

“I wish that we could make Contakt a five or 10-day show so that the crowd could be much smaller each day and the environment could be more controlled.

“Right now, technology allows for real surround sound and a 360º visuals but it’s economically unfeasible.”

Certainly in Richie Hawtin’s mind, techno culture and live performance have a long way to go.

It is that continuing evolution then, that makes techno so exciting.

As Hawtin concludes, “Taking somebody out of their routine and creating something that creates a spike in their lives is the power of electronic music.

“When the curtains opened at Sonar to reveal us five on stage, the audience were like ‘What the fuck is this?’”

“That ‘fuck me’ moment is very important to our lives… between these spikes that we all search for, life can be somewhat dull and boring”.

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