Richie Hawtin

Biography

Hawtin was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire, England, but at the age of nine moved to LaSalle, Ontario, a suburb of Windsor, Ontario. 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 music and techno.

With Canadian DJ John Acquaviva he formed the label Plus 8 in 1989 to release his own tracks under the name F.U.S.E., whose Approach and Identify 12" is closely associated with the origins of the IDM subgenre. He dropped out of the University of Windsor, where he was studying film, and Plus 8 went on to release material by artists such as Speedy J and Kenny Larkin. Hawtin adopted his Plastikman incarnation in 1993 releasing the iconic percussive single "Spastik" and parent album "Sheet One", going on to release a number of albums and touring a live show for the next decade.

In 1996 Hawtin released a series of monthly 12-inch singles, entitled Concept 1 which, alongside the work of Robert Hood, pioneered the Minimal techno style. His M_nus label also pursued this direction. In 1999 the Decks, EFX & 909 mix album, the first in a series of three, set new standards for technological input, including 38 tracks molded via effects and drum machines.

Hawtin spent part of 2002 and 2003 living in New York City, before opening a label in Berlin, Germany, where he focused on his M_nus label, developing the careers of DJ-producers such as Magda, Gaiser, Hearttrob and Troy Pierce. In 2006, he collaborated with choreographer Enzo Cosimi on a composition called "9.20" for the Winter Olympics opening ceremony. He said, "Enzo and I are very much interested in pushing boundaries, both as artists and for our audiences. Working together for the Opening Ceremonies of the Winter Games delivers the creative endeavor to not only entertain a huge audience, but to also introduce them to sights and sounds that they may have never experienced before."

In 2008 the M_nus presents Contakt tour criss-crossed the globe, presenting Hawtin, Magda, Troy Pierce and others jamming on wireless audio workstations using brand new technology such as the Lemur Controller. Two years later, at the Time Warp festival in Mannheim in March 2010 Hawtin unveiled a spectacular new Plastikman live show, known as Plastikman 1.5, which went on to tour the globe.

In June 2011 Hawtin worked with Anish Kapoor on an installation in the Grand Palais in Paris.

In 2012 Hawtin worked with Loco Dice and Ean Golden in promoting Electronic Dance Music on a tour of North American universities entitled CNTRL: Beyond EDM, which included music production seminars, lessons in the music business, and live music performances.

Since 2012 Hawtin has presented ENTER. at Space in Ibiza during the summer season, promoted via an acclaimed marketing campaign featuring a black dot. ENTER. consists of five specially designed rooms and a wide array of electronic music. Due to Hawtin's love of sake and Japanese culture ENTER. also has a sake bar that sells its own brand of sake, produced in a collaboration with Kyoto's Sookuu Sake Company.

in 2013, Hawtin worked with his brother Matthew on concept pieces entitled Contained at the Art Basel showcase in Miami.

Hawtin's successes in music technology were affirmed in July 2015, when he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music Technology by the University of Huddersfield.

Recording career

Hawtin has recorded music under the aliases Plastikman, F.U.S.E., Concept 1, Forcept 1, Circuit Breaker, Robotman, Chrome, Spark, Xenon, R.H.X., Jack Master, Richard Michaels and UP!. He also recorded and performed, in combination with other artists, under group names such as The Hard Brothers, Hard Trax (with his brother Matthew Hawtin), 0733, Cybersonik (with Daniel Bell and John Acquaviva), Final Exposure (with Joey Beltram and Mundo Muzique), Just For Fun (with Holger Wick), Narod Niki (with Akufen, Cabanne, Dandy Jack, Daniel Bell, Luciano, Ricardo Villalobos, Robert Henke and Thomas Franzmann), Two Guys In The Basement (with John Acquaviva), Spawn (with Fred Giannelli and Daniel Bell) and States Of Mind (with Acquaviva).

Hawtin and Pete Namlook collaborated to produce the From Within series of albums which blend minimal techno and ambient. He has also released a mix CD Sounds of the Third Season with Sven Väth.

Slices magazine launched a series of biographies in 2007 called "Pioneers of Electronic Music"; their first issue was a 60-minute biographical documentary on Hawtin. The film follows his career from his early days crossing the border to Detroit to his current life in Berlin, and contains interviews with many colleagues and family members.

2011 saw the release of Arkives 1993 - 2010, a massive box set containing everything Hawtin has released under his Plastikman moniker, as well as a new mixed set and previously unreleased material. The collection includes CDs, vinyl, digital downloads and a DVD.

In November 2013 Hawtin performed as Plastikman at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City. This performance inspired him to finish a new Plastikman LP. "It put me back in the studio and inspired me enough to work on new material, and in five days I created a new album", he said. The album, titled EX, was released digitally on June 10, 2014 followed with a physical release on July 15, 2014 .

On December 11, 2015 Hawtin released a fifteen-track LP titled From My Mind To Yours to commemorate the 25 year anniversary of his record label Plus 8. The album consists of all new tracks from his various aliases such as Plastikman, F.U.S.E., Robotman, R.H.X., and Circuit Breaker. In its first week it reached the top 20 in the UK dance album charts.

Albums

DJ mix compilations

DJ Awards

DJ Awards organizes the annual electronic music DJ awards event. It is the only international ceremony for DJs and also the oldest, and is held once a year at Pacha club in Ibiza Spain. The award is one of the most important accolades an artist can win or be honoured by.

Hawtin has won the Best Techno DJ Award three times and received 17 nominations overall.

AIM Awards

The Association of Independent Music (AIM) UK the AIM promotes independent artists producing their own music globally.

DJ rankings (current)

The DJ List Ranking

The DJ List has approximately 1 million members who rate DJ's in different EDM genres, these are the statistics for The DJ List as of 6 November 2015.

Top Deejays Ranking

Topdeejays is a global DJ database founded and operated by FM Agencija it uses an algorithm that measures general social media influence of a DJ by combining their Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, SoundCloud, MySpace, Last.fm and YouTube fans, subscribers and followers TDJ calculates and applies TDJ points to in order rank artists global, national and by genre influence. These are the statistics for topdeejays as of 6 November 2015.

DJ Rankings The Official Global DJ Rankings is calculated according to an advanced algorithm, compiled to give an accurate, independent and fair ranking of all DJs it considers the following criteria DJ earnings.Media presence, Chart data from music releases and remixes, Airplay data from radio stations. Public data about royalties collected from copyright associations, Followers on major social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter etc. and Polling and rating data from various polling agencies and rating sites, such as dj-rating.com and djmag.com.