He is an icon of Detroit techno’s second wave, yet that statement alone not only obscures, but also misrepresents, the truth about Richie Hawtin.
To start, he isn’t truly from Detroit, but rather Windsor; moreover, his background reads like a travelogue, with stops in England, New York, and Berlin. Nevertheless, Hawtin’s mind-bending, minimalist take on techno positions him along an axis of electronic music — everything from seminal records by The Belleville Three to later releases from artists such as Drexciya — that’s forever become associated with the Motor City.
Still, his viewpoint looking in lends Ex, Hawtin’s latest work under the alias Plastikman, a rare sense of aural intensity. The LP is deeply affecting upon first listen — stuffed to the gills with nervous energy — yet further spins reveal a work stripped down to the barest essentials of what constitutes a moving experience in a live setting.
Ex, which was recorded live in 2013 at New York’s Guggenheim Museum’s annual fundraiser, marks Hawtin’s first Plastikman release since 2003’s Closer. Speaking of the album’s concept, Hawtin was inspired by the architectural beauty of and art within his performance space, which was far removed from the dance floor.
In many ways, this is less a traditional record than sonic sculpture — for example, a limited edition bundle includes a custom Plastikman version of the SubPac, a portable bass system that is designed to introduce “the physical dimension of sound” and forge “a direct connection between the fan and the music in its purest form.”
As a result, Ex seems like Hawtin’s attempt at bringing together two different worlds that don’t often meet — the heady pretensions of the white cube and the sweaty tension of the dark club — to demonstrate how they share a penchant for rapt attention. That it succeeds is testament to Hawtin’s talents.
From Ex’s familiar acid synths to blink-and-you’ll-miss-it polyrhythms, Plastikman’s latest cements his place in a line of electro-delic/psyche-tronic musicians encompassing luminaries like Aphex Twin and Mouse on Mars through newcomers such as Nicolas Jaar or Shackleton.
Similarly, Ex’s sonic environment traverses multiple genres as it transforms throughout the hour: minimal techno’s clatter (reminiscent of Rob Hood or Jeff Mills), house’s four-on-the-floor thump, Dionysian ambient textures. Furthermore, the grand sweep of tracks such as “EXtend” or “EXpire” shows off Richie Hawtin’s dexterity both with drugged-up, spaced-out experimentation as well as with nimbly weaving together interlocking layers of drum machines into a faux-cinematic score.
Yet what stands out most of all on Ex is the feeling of unfinished business from an unpredictable, ambitious artist; throughout this new LP there aren’t sudden outbursts as much as there are subtle variations on undulating subsonic basslines, which can be either upsetting, ecstatic, maddening, scary, gentle, intimate, haphazard, humorous, or sorrowful.
When Hawtin slows things down by record’s end, the remarkably spare “EXhale,” he’s not only brought back the party full circle, but he’s also brought up the possibility of more music to come. Whether we see that day is anyone’s guess; Plastikman isn’t going to let us in on any secrets. For now let’s just be thankful we have Ex.
Listen to Plastikman/Richie Hawtin’s Ex in its entirety below: