The DJ mix is a hugely successful album format. What started with Mixmag's pioneering cover CD featuring Carl Cox, has now become a multi-million pound industry. We've had techno epics (Jeff Mills), hip-hop extravaganzas (Funkmaster Flex), virtuoso downbeat ('The Kruder & Dorfmeister Sessions') and freeform genre-hopping (Gilles Peterson) Even indie queen Jo Whiley got in on the act when she appeared in the Incredible Sound series.
The original formula – a live recorded session of one person and their trusty Technics – has been heavily influenced by new technology. Most of the mixes currently available have been tweaked and improved by expert engineers, to the point where they could not ever be recreated live.
Richie Hawtin's previous mix album 'Decks, EFX and 909' was upfront in its use of the latest trickery. Unwilling to simply choose his set and get mixing, the Canadian king of minimal techno welded together the tracks in a new style, occasionally fusing three records at once, with the help of his trusty Roland 909 drum machine, and an effects box.
He takes the whole concept one stage further on his latest mix effort, 'DE9: Closer to the Edit', stripping down his choice of records to 4-bar loops, and reassembling them into something new and barely recognisable. On vinyl, the album consists of locked grooves, the needle endlessly following the same four-bar loop, until the listener cracks and takes it off. Luckily there's at least two hundred loops to choose from.
Luckily the CD version is a lot more conventional, an intense, dark mix of the spare, ultra-modern techno that is Hawtin's trademark. "The album is a definite continuation and a progression forward, it has to be with any of my albums. Both 'DE9' and 'Decks, EFX and 909' have a philosophy of using extra equipment along with the classic DJ set-up, to manipulate the tracks more than a normal DJ could."
"The first album used this idea in a live sense, on this one I threw that out the door. I know that I can DJ live, so I wanted to find out what would happen if I could any technology or technique at my disposal, and that's how I approached it"
Hawtin's tack on his career is admirable. He seems reluctant to tread water and soak up the (considerable) dollars that being a name DJ can earn with ease. He is a lot more interested in advancing and progressing what he is doing musically.
"I find funny that the today's mix albums pretend to be live when they are not", he says, referring to the extensive post-production that applies that perfect sheen to the typical live DJ album. "I'm not going to pretend, I wanted to move as far away from a live album as possible, and see what I could do, using all the technology I needed to unleash the creativity."
Hawtin certainly appears to have personally turned a corner in the way he operates. "Never again. I won't do normal DJ setups anymore. It was progressive once, but it hasn't been for a while now." He is unusually forthright in turning his back on the trusty wheels of steel as the only tool a DJ's armoury. "People seem to be afraid to try new things, but we're based in electronic music! My genre, techno, is meant to be so progressive and futuristic, and the DJs who are producing mix albums are doing it in such an unprogressive way."
Hawtin's intentions in shaking up a static scene are clearly praiseworthy, but the question mark that hangs over 'Closer To The Edit' is whether it is a revolution in production, or just a technophilic orgy of gadgetry? Stylistically the album is an major achievement, but as a listening experience it is remarkably aloof and uninvolving, and the investment of time in the studio poring over flickering screens hasn't translated into end results for the listener.
The infamous vinyl version allows the listener to recreate the mix to his own taste at home, with Hawtin's full approval. "I'd much rather hear someone else's version of 'DE9' than someone mixing records together and doing another boring mix CD." Boring is a cruel word, but techno is not currently in the best of health. Though it is still extremely popular, its days of agenda-setting and having a major influence outside the boundaries of the genre seem a long time ago.
Most genres go through troughs of creativity, where momentum peters out for a while, but a seismic shock often comes along and kick-starts a new wave of activity. Hawtin might have had this in mind with 'Closer To The Edit', but in reality, the concept is far more interesting than the resulting album. Impressive, but just not good enough.
Luke McManus
Richie Hawtin plays The Ambassador, Dublin on 20 October.'DE9: Closer to the Edit' is out now on Nova Mute.
