Music Millennium

Reviews:

Few electronic artists have managed to make so much out of so little as Richie Hawtin. Sure, one could side a house with the minimal techno 12-inches that come out of Detroit and Berlin every year, but ever since initiating the Plastikman persona with the seminal Sheet One in 1993, Hawtin has turned his stark kick-drums and acid basslines into a full-blown aesthetic. As Hawtin is fond of claiming for himself in interviews, he can't be bothered with lingering on the past for too long, because as the machines progress, so does he. So finally, five years after the last Plastikman opus Consumed, Hawtin moves into the personal with Closer, augmenting some of these tracks with vocals for the first time. And while it's not any monumental change to the spare, metronomic sound that defines his aesthetic, it's an important step forward nonetheless.

That's not to say listening to this disc can't be tough going at times. Hawtin sets the stage early on "Ask Yourself," as a vocoderized voice considers a helpless and confused Hawtin and concludes, "I can't help you/ I'm just the voice inside your head/ Help yourself." When the voice does pop in again, such as on the single "Disconnect" and "Mind in Rewind," things haven't much improved for Hawtin, and the final track, "I Don't Know," concludes the general inconclusiveness of the whole affair. The effect is like watching a foreign movie that is rich in atmosphere but generally low on excitement. But such is Hawtin's aesthetic, and one has to admire him for refusing to hit his listener over the head with what he has to say. In short, party music this ain't (although "Mind in Rewind" and "I Don't Know" may work in a set if you mix in and out of them), but if techno music is ever going to be considered serious art, it will take people like Hawtin to make it .