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Mon, 31 Oct 2005

Richie Hawtin

Richie Hawtin, DE9|Transitions
DVD and CD, Novamute

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I spent an hour or two with a Roland MC909 the other day, generating full-on techno by pushing puttons for different patterns while sliding the faders to bring the parts up or down. DJing without turntables or straightforward creation? It's somewhere between the two I think.

Richie Hawtin has been voyaging away from turntables and in his "searching for what's next" he's used Abelton Live and Pro Tools to reassemble bits and tracks. "That's the big question behind all the DE9 CDs - what can I do now with the technology and how can I push it in a new direction to further the experimentation and heighten the experience?". It's also a voyage towards having more of a say creatively, and quite a long way down the path from merely playing other people's work.

In this set is an ordinary CD of the tracks but this is called a "bonus CD" because one of the main things here is 5.1 Surround Sound and that is used on the DVD, where you get the tracks along with minimal screen activity. There's also a filmed conversation with Richie and an excerpt from a music event at Mannheim only a few months ago. One of the interesting points made in the conversation is that, a few years ago, software could only beat match over shortish time periods of twenty seconds or so whereas now it is able to match much longer periods, so making it easier to get further away from the turntable.

In all of this Richie Hawtin manages to maintain his connection with people through their feet -- all of this pleasurably danceable.

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