Richie Hawtin - Transitions

Genre electronica Publisher m_nus External Links Official Website m_nus

Transitions is the third release in second-wave Detroit techno legend Richie Hawtin's DE9 series. Each DE9 mix has made use of the latest technology to showcase Hawtin's ideas about where DJ mixing is now and where it will be heading soon. These days, the hottest technology is a piece of software called Ableton Live, which has gained name recognition like almost no piece of tech since the Roland 808 drum machine. Ableton partly derives its fame from the ease with which it lets users synchronize samples and audio tracks, so that disparate sources can be carved up, mined for gold, and recontextualized. Hawtin takes full advantage of this capability, working up hundreds of tracks, taking only unrecognizably short snippets from some and more well-known elements out of others.

In addition to utilizing the state of the art in creating the centerpiece mix, Hawtin has diversified this release so that it comes in many forms -- as a standard audio CD, as a DVD with a 5.1 surround-sound mix, and as a high-quality mp3 stored on the DVD. The mp3 and the DVD are the full version, clocking in at an hour and half, while the nature of the CD format limits it to 72 minutes. Including the mp3 was thoughtful of Hawtin; his version of copy protection is a plea in the liner notes (which are written in an incredibly small [minimal?] font), in which he asks with a smile that listeners be "kind enough" to use the mp3 for personal use. This means a lot more coming from the artist himself rather than the label.

But all this is academic if the product doesn't hold up. There are tons of things going on all the time on this mix; it's a jungle of tiny sounds. Listen on headphones or good speakers to catch the full effect (always advisable with minimal techno). Sometimes the little sounds are satisfying in themselves; often they contribute to a bigger whole. But other times they fail to create any satisfying effect, especially during a large dry spot from about twenty to forty-five minutes. During this period it sounds like everything has been blended into a faceless slab of concrete. The entire first half of the mix is a verrrry gradual build-up, so there's none of the banging techno that listeners will remember from some of Hawtin's live sets. Things pick up around forty-five minutes in. Basslines start to appear, the backbeat clears up, becomes sharper and harder.

I can't being to talk about all the tracks because I don't have the depth to recognize the tiny bits that represent most of them, but repeated listening does reward listeners with glimpses of Hawtin's own Plastikman tracks, many unreleased goodies from Ricardo Villalobos, and snatches of tracks from many other current and legendary producers like Carl Craig, Matthew Dear, Luciano Underground Resistance, and Daniel Bell.

Transitions is an ambitious attempt to limn the path ahead for electronic music, in which the DJ will exercise more control than ever over the source material, thanks to advances in technology. Hawtin has transmuted and sliced his way to produce something that may be somewhat more exciting as an idea than in its execution, but that is nonetheless, at its best, more than the sum of its parts.