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DJ Mag Top100 DJs
31
Richie Hawtin
3

When times are trying, people turn to superheroes for hope. Hence the reappearance of Plastikman, who returned in 2010 on a self-proclaimed mission to "bring the weirdness back to techno".
"I've watched a lot of live electronic shows recently and was really uninspired," explains Richie Hawtin, the Peter Parker behind Plastikman's mysterious facade. "Like any genre, techno has become quite commercial now that it's got so huge. I felt it needed something heavier, darker and more intense."
And just as Plastikman's 'Sheet One' album from 1993 infamously came packaged in 'blotter acid' artwork, so the new live shows have delivered a blitzkrieg of beats and visuals as head-spinning as the hardest hallucinogenic. But whilst plenty of the tunes are now over 15-years-old, Plastikman live, as befits an avowed technophile like Hawtin, wasn't an exercise in nostalgia, not just because of the live iPhone synchs during concerts, but because tunes like 'Spastik' and 'Helikopter' still sound far ahead of today's mire of minimal techno.
"I think I occupy this weird position between being popular and underground," Richie continues. "I didn't want this to be just some underground thing because what I want to achieve needs to work on a larger scale." Which is why he's had what he calls a "schizophrenic year", alternating between the two personae of Plastikman and DJing as Richie Hawtin. Yet whichever mask Richie's been wearing, his superpowers have been evident for all to hear.