Plastikman gained a hardcore following with an extensive mailing list of fans across America. These events not only made Plastikman a hero across the Midwestern USA, they helped create a platform for an entire scene to develop. At the heart of it all was ‘the System’, a four point Cerwin Vega sound system (when two were standard), arranged in the round. Using materials as basic as a roll of black plastic sheeting over walls and ceilings, or as elaborate as the 40,000 square feet of the abandoned Packard automobile factory in Detroit (where Plastikman’s first live performance took place), they transformed spaces into microcosms, featuring probing lights, bowls of fresh fruit, Melba toast dipped in acid, and pools of goldfish. Events such as Hard, Hardest, Heaven & Hell, Spastik, Jak, Sickness & Recovery, and the Fuk Tour raised the bar for what was possible. extravaganzas at Space in Ibiza today – albeit on a different scale - Hawtin and associates staged elaborate events whose every detail was intended to pull people out of the everyday and plunge them into the unknown. The parties were based on those he’d experienced as a teenager at Detroit’s legendary Music Institute a black sweatbox of a room, a single strobe light, and the phattest sound system.Īs with his ENTER. They took place in and around Detroit, as well as Hawtin's home town of Windsor, Ontario, and their reputation spread worldwide by word-of-mouth, snail mail and message boards. Across six albums (‘Sheet One’, ‘Musik’, ‘Recycled Plastik’, ‘Consumed’, ‘Artifakts (B.C.)’, and ‘Closer)’ and numerous singles such as ‘Spastik’, ‘Plastique’, and ‘Sickness’, Plastikman evolved into one of contemporary electronic music’s most distinctive voices: minimalist, psychedelic, groove-laden and ever mindful of the transcendent properties of electronica.Īs the ‘90s dawned, Plastikman also helmed some of the most intense, mind-īending parties underground electronic music has ever known.

Before this, though, and perhaps most famously of all, he was and is Plastikman, an electronic music phenomenon whose followers are legion and fanatic.īetween 19 Plastikman created an astonishing body of work, one that didn't so much define a time and place as explode them, expanding the dimensions of Detroit techno and redefining the possibilities of electronic dance music. Experience in Ibiza, mastermind behind the Minus label, technological innovator, art aficionado, style icon. Richie Hawtin is many things – an extraordinary DJ, creator of the ENTER.

Richie hawtin live