Richard (Richie) Hawtin (born June 4, 1970, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England) is a English-Canadian electronic musician and internationally-touring DJ who was an influential part of Detroit techno's second wave of artists in the early 1990s.
Hawtin is best known for his abstract, minimal works under the alias Plastikman, a moniker he continued to use into the mid 2000s. Hawtin is known for DJing minimal techno sets making use of laptop computers and digital mixing equipment. In May 1990, Hawtin fellow second-waver John Acquaviva founded the Plus 8 record label, which they named after their turntable's pitch adjust function. In 1998, Hawtin launched Minus, primarily for his own projects.
Biography
Hawtin was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire in England, but moved when he was aged 9 to LaSalle, Ontario, a suburb of Windsor, Ontario, and just across the river from Detroit, the birthplace of techno. His father worked as a robotics technician at General Motors, and was a fan of electronic music, introducing his son to Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream at an early age. He has one brother, Matthew, who is a visual artist and ambient music DJ. Hawtin attended Sandwich Secondary High School in LaSalle. He began to DJ in clubs in Detroit at 17, and his early style was a mix of house and techno. In 1990, along with Canadian DJ John Acquaviva, he formed the label Plus-8 in order to release his own tracks under the name FUSE. Hawtin was billed for DJ appearances under the name Richie Rich, a name also used by an American hip hop music DJ who was a member of 3rd Bass, and also a UK house music DJ who was actively producing remixes around the same time. He spent part of 2002 and 2003 living in New York City, and has since moved to Berlin, Germany. He said, "I’d always wanted to move to Europe. I needed somewhere that was inspiring and where there were like-minded musicians and artists, somewhere you could still experiment with music and with life. Berlin is so liberal in so many different ways; there’s an amazing club scene, there’s a great development software tech scene, there are so many resources here."
Selected discography
* F.U.S.E.: Dimension Intrusion, 1993
* Plastikman: Sheet One, 1993
* Plastikman: Musik, 1994
* Plastikman: Recycled Plastik, 1994
* Richie Hawtin: Concept 1 96 VR, 1998
* Richie Hawtin: Concept 1 96 CD, 1998
* Plastikman: Consumed, 1998
* Plastikman: Artifakts [bc], 1998
* Richie Hawtin: Decks, EFX & 909, 1999
* Richie Hawtin: DE9: Closer to the Edit, 2001
* Richie Hawtin and Sven Väth: Sound of the Third Season , 2002
* Plastikman: Closer, 2003
* Richie Hawtin and Ricardo Villalobos Live at the Robert Johnson, Offenbach, Germany. 2004
* Richie Hawtin: DE9 | Transitions, 2005
* Richie Hawtin: DE9 lite: Electronic Adventures (Produced with MixMag) , 2006
* Richie Hawtin : Minus Orange 1 Decks, EFX & 909 , 2007
* Richie Hawtin : Sounds From Can Elles , (DJMAG) 2008
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