VIA PRESS RELEASE | The 30th Anniversary Edition of Plastikman’s groundbreaking debut album, Sheet One, is set for release on December 15th, 2023 in the US and Canada. It will be released on BioVinyl, remastered from the original masters and available via Mute sublabel NovaMute.
Plastikman is just one of Richie Hawtin’s alter egos and Sheet One was the first in a series of releases that started a phenomenon with seismic influence. Its stark production was quite unlike anything else in the electronic scene at that time, and an instantly recognizable and somewhat controversial acid-blotter CD cover introduced the world to his unique sound. The album was the beginning of a long creative relationship between Richie Hawtin and Mute and soon took its place as a crucial, classic electronic album. The release has also been remastered for digital re-release, courtesy of Manmade Mastering from Berlin.
With Plastikman, Richie Hawtin defined a time and place, expanding the dimensions of Detroit techno and redefining the possibilities of electronic dance music, evolving over six albums into one of contemporary electronic music’s most distinctive voices: minimalist, psychedelic, groove-laden, and transcendent.
Born in Oxfordshire, Hawtin’s family moved to Canada when he was nine and, growing up he was heavily influenced by both his father’s diverse record collection and his own acute curiosity for everything electronic, watching from an early age as his father dismantled various electronic devices, rebuilding and modifying them in front of his son’s eyes.
It was inevitable that his passions for music, technology and computers would be finally drawn together, and upon hearing the early sounds of Detroit Techno and Chicago Acid House on Jeff Mills’ late ’80s Detroit radio show, he found his direction. Traveling between his home town of Windsor, Ontario (Canada) and Detroit, Plastikman helmed some of the most intense, mind-bending parties underground electronic music has ever known.
2023 also saw the anniversary reissue of Dimension Intrusion by Hawtin’s alter ego F.U.S.E. for the Artificial Intelligence series on Warp. It’s another incredible milestone for Richie Hawtin, whose award-winning, prolific career includes him becoming one of the most globally acclaimed techno DJs as well as a technological wizard with decades of innovations behind him: he co-founded the seminal techno label Plus 8 (with John Acquaviva and M_nus) as well as PLAYdifferently (an artist forward DJ mixer / technology company).
He also has a burgeoning career in sake, co-founding ENTER.Sake and the Sake 36 tasting room and distributor based in Berlin. Over the last thirty years, Hawtin (often as Plastikman) has collaborated with some of the world’s leading cultural and creative figures, including Raf Simons, Anish Kapoor, Andreas Gursky and John Gerrard. A series of Plastikman vinyl reissues will continue in 2024.
Richie Hawtin aka Plastikman states: “After a few years of experimenting with equipment and techniques, I slowly started to find my own unique direction and sound by digging deep into the possibilities of the Roland TB303. The first crucial steps were the F.U.S.E. tracks ‘F.U.’ and ‘Substance Abuse,’ both throbbing dancefloor inspired physical work-outs. That led to my idea of taking the sound of my style of Acid deeper into a more cerebral long-form experiment that became the foundation of Sheet One. Recorded mostly over an intense 48 hour period, the album came alive as I paired the Roland TR606 drum machine to the TB303 for my first time, which opened the doorway into this unique Hawtin trip! ”
Daniel Miller from Mute states: “Pure electronic music innovator!”
