RICHIE HAWTIN - DE9|Transitions

To avoid any confusion, let's confirm it right away: Richie Hawtin is the real name behind Plastikman, his best-known alter ego, perhaps now defunct, or at least inactive since 2003, the year "Closer" was released. The second (or third, depending on how you count) in a series, his new "DE9" is a very peculiar mix album. Why so peculiar? Because, quite apart from the music (excellent, by the way), it raises two important questions.

The first is a genuine question, one that won't be answered by theorists but by the facts of the coming years.

To pose it properly, a brief explanation of what this "DE9" actually is, and how it's been presented, is in order. "DE9|Transitions" is the first album conceived, designed and mixed specifically in Dolby Surround 5.1 audio format, the one used for home theatre systems, to be clear. For obvious reasons of space, the work is therefore pressed onto DVD. Plenty of records have recently come out in this format too, but until now it had always been an adaptation to the format, even when the standard stereo CD release and the 5.1 DVD version came out simultaneously (Beck's "Guero" and Einstürzende Neubauten's "Perpetuum Mobile", to name a couple). That's the important novelty here.

The question, then, is: is this step really necessary?

Obviously it's not a matter of timing. There's no such thing as "too soon" in these cases, and time will tell whether this "DE9" is a mere extravagance or a far-sighted leap forward.

Nor is it a matter of accessibility. Anyone without a home theatre system can simply use the bonus CD (careful: that's the bonus, not the DVD), or even the mp3s that a generous, wise Hawtin throws in as extras on the DVD, a slap in the face to anyone still killing music with copy-protected CDs (since anyone determined to pirate will do so regardless).

Still, at the risk of sounding like a reactionary, this writer is convinced that the shift from mono to stereo was a far more momentous change than this new one, because once that first leap was made, once we went from one to two, every subsequent step becomes inherently easier (from two to three, from three to four, from five thousand to five thousand and one). And while that shift made sense, rooted as it was in human anatomy, does the new surround format make the same kind of sense? Is it the answer to a real need, or an attempt to manufacture a new one? Hard, very hard to say.

For the record, I attended a set from this album's promotional tour, and Hawtin still mixes in stereo.

The second question is almost philosophical. At what point can a mix album still be called that, rather than a standalone work, the exclusive product of its creator's own ingenuity?

To explain the second peculiarity of this work, we need only quote Richie himself from the back cover: "This next-generation mix includes samples, parts and fragments from more than 100 tracks, including exclusive cuts and rare classics from Ricardo Villalobos, Marc Houle, Dbx, Sähkö, Carl Craig and many others." And on the cover, against the white background that also features Hawtin's face and his questionable hairstyle, we likewise find the names of Robert Hood, Underground Resistance, Speedy J, Ø and Plastikman himself, just to mention a few more.

Even while declaring his sources upfront, Hawtin mixes and loops tiny fragments of other people's tracks, intervening significantly with the tools at his disposal, turning it all into a single uninterrupted ninety-six-minute sonic flow in which none of the source tracks is identifiable. The tracks, moreover, aren't presented as they would be on a normal mix album, but under standalone titles with no credit to any author other than the Canadian himself. And yet, at the same time, it's made perfectly clear that this is a mix album built from other people's compositions, just like any other mix album. This is the fundamental step forward compared to its predecessor, the "DE9" subtitled "Closer To The Edit", whose source tracks remained largely recognisable and, crucially, were listed on the tracklist.

Even though it diverges completely in terms of sonic result, conceptually "DE9" ends up close to the work of Oval, who used tiny loops of skipping CDs, scratched vinyl and microscopic samples in their compositions. But it's also a relative of the work of sampling specialists and the cut-and-paste techniques underpinning so much hip-hop production. In those cases there's no doubt about authorship: the author is the producer who chooses the samples and puts them together, even when the tracks they're lifted from are instantly recognisable. The problem is that Richie Hawtin asserts and denies his authorship at one and the same time.

By maintaining a strong ambiguity, Hawtin forces us to question (once again) the boundaries, implications and kinship between sampling, composition and simple deejaying. And the answers are neither simple nor immediate. Reflection on the matter, both from theorists and musicians, can only be long and difficult. Perhaps that's why the subtitle chosen for the record is "Transitions".

When it comes to the music itself, there's not much left to say, except that it's remarkable how much class and personality Hawtin still manages to bring to every release without ever wearing thin. He may have (inevitably) lost the sheer impact he had ten years ago, but good old Richie still manages to surprise with every small variation, every tiny nuance he adds to his sound. A sound that remains "minimal" without a doubt, but one that, paying due attention to current trends, is enriched with expressive elements and becomes less rigorous. Impure yet always spotless, impeccable, and for that reason extraordinarily alive. Let's also remember that Hawtin recently moved to Berlin (him too! maybe it's because the rents are the cheapest of all Western European capitals...), where he says he's gone back to living the nightlife like he hadn't in years. Evidently sleeping little does him good.

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30/04/2026