[microsound] mutek moment/s [4]: recycled plastik

["tobias c. van Veen" <tobias@xxxxxxxxx>]

[4] Recycled Plastik

Rewind nine years, to a different time and era, a different location, when
the event moved through monikers of a social mode. Plastikman Live, 1995,
Transcendance.

http://www.hyperreal.org/raves/spirit/technoshamanism/Plastikman_Live-Transc
endance.html

Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 08:16:12 -0500 (EST)
 From: Graydon Hoare <coventry@xxxxxx>


plastikman live:
Been dancing up a storm all evening, trippin like crazy, looking into the
eyes of everyone and seeing outrageous things, suddenly the music grows more
intense, more intense, like these thick syrupy thuds and smacks growing
faster and faster, it's the sound of the insides of a body making love, it's
the sounds of a heartbeat roaring in my chest as I am jerked about by powers
beyond my control, a gut feeling of all living things all over the world
that only we humans have forgotten, it's strong, pounding, incredible with
this slowly rising roaring howling sound, getting louder and louder and we
stare into the lights which flash at us, seeing their intent, it ovewhelms
us, there is only the deafening sound and energy now, every centimeter of
skin in my body electrocuted in a state of insane radiant LIVING, each cell
screaming at the top of it's lungs I DON'T WANT TO DIE I AM ALIVE and the
roar grows louder and louder, I look at her face and say "WHAT IS
HAPPENING?" and tears are running down my cheeks and hers too, we're holding
on to one another for dear life, the music isn't even recognizable anymore
and our bodies are buzzing too strong and loose to know what we're doing,
suddenly we realize there is a jet aircraft in the room flying over us! it
is here, pointing in our faces, it is the head of a monster dragon roaring
at us how DARE we forget what we are? We are all, thousands of us, howling
with it in recognition and our insides are coming out and everyone sees. The
passion is so intense there is no room for identity or time or memory, it
lasts forever and in all directions in an indescribable manner! everything
is so visceral it's horrifying and ecstatic at the same time. And then the
jet washes past and the noise screeches forwards and the crowd of all of us
tear after it as the fastest drums the world have ever seen come back to
kick us back into action, all holding hands and locking eyes now, all
dancing and crying and smiling smiles which never occur in the normal world
- smiles so alive and hungry that we know then it is all just beginning
forever! It is so draining that occasionally our legs give way and we have
to hold on to one another to stay up, catch our breaths a little or go to a
room where water can be got, hard to find our way in the electric emotion of
the place but we do. We are lighter than air, energy radiated from thehidden
reactors modern life keeps on chill-mode all day. Hours later I am finding
myself on a floor still awake with all of them lying down now and what world
are we in? The sun is coming up, a fresh new day and my muscles are
tingling, my head buzzing, my body draped over hers and hers over mine....
richie is such a fuckin' good musician.

 xoxograydon

++ 9 years past,=:

On the right hand side, in front of the black speaker mass, a crew dropping
the tabs for the 9 year reunion. They were there last time, in 1995, in a
warehouse of sound, that Transcendance moment. Where were they now? (Trying
to raise the dead memories of a time long passed into oblivion?the specter
that perhaps should be nailed shut in the coffin, as one ex-raver from
Ottawa put it).

Space return a year, to a DJ set of Richie Hawtin at Mutek that caught us
all by surprise. I wrote of the return of Plastikman with the fervour of the
religious follower who so desires to believe. Enthused by the energy that
Mutek has managed to coalesce, Hawtin jumped to the fray of the performance
scene a year later by setting the expectations as high as he could:
Plastikman Live. As expectations were astronomical it follows that
disappointment became impossible to defer in this tensile situation if not
inevitable.  For the record, Hawtin had two technical difficulties?his
earphones kept bugging out (which were fixed), and his visuals were not
operating properly (or absent).  Yet one felt that this new technological
beast he had created, this jet plane of gear surrounding his wireframe
identity on three sides, was not the agile bird of grace he so desired. A
jumbo jet perhaps?and one that could crash or land. Talking with Hawtin
later, he mused on the metaphor of the experience of flying the music, a
hand on the new controls of something almost foreign yet sounding so near,
so close. It must be understood that Hawtin was playing an entirely new
instrument, not only for the world¹s air traffic control, but for him. No
autopilot in this [CTRL].

And taken into consideration, the task which Hawtin set himself?of using a
completely new system of technological devices, and of learning to pilot
these devices in a live situation?was nigh destined to encounter its own
limitations. And it did. While the minimalist intensity of Hawtin¹s
compositions were as strict as to be expected, the flightplan was unclear.
Where were we going in this stratosphere of rumbled bass? Where had we been?
And why?

Beginning with a cut from Sheet One, moving through Concept material and
Consumed, ³Are Friends Electric?² from Artifakts (BC), and a good dose of
the tightness of kickdrum and percussion that began with DE9 and Closer to
the Edit and that recently peaked in the Closer album, Hawtin served a
sampling of in-flight snacks that never quite added up to a full meal. The
kicker never kicked in on the Spastik close-out. It was close, closer, but
not close enough. But was this not because we had already flown with
stomachs expecting a 5 course repast past the burning twin towers of memory
and loss?

I have waited before writing on Plastikman¹s performance. For many it was
the centrepiece of this year¹s Mutek if not a travel destination for entire
contingents from the MidWest, the West Coast, Central Canada, the world at
large.... And although originally left feeling empty?and confirming this
sense of loss with others around me who were relieved to find a sympathy of
opinion?I now feel that Hawtin¹s performance was an attempt, or as Philip
Sherburne puts it in the Mutek catalogue, a ³proposition.² What Hawtin put
forth was a vision of live performance that encompassed total art. While it
did not approach the social context and element of fear and danger that were
sustained with the series of events he aided in organising 10 years ago
(Jak, Sickness/Recovery, etc.), it opened a vision of something to-come. It
might not be continued by Hawtin, but it will be sampled and programmed, in
another mode or moment, to reoccur with a new force?and by necessity,
through the rediscovery of anamolous context. For Hawtin¹s moment was tied
to a historical force that has left the building, leaving only its echoes.

Hawtin to the machine. His identity as the recast of the Thin White Duke
leads to the question: Is Hawtin the new Bowie with his identity sequences
or a cult of personality? Does the look speak louder than the sound? Either
way, it is only with the deepest of bows and respect that any questions are
posed, and it is only in light of the proposition set forth by Hawtin that
we join him on his aerial journeys, head bent forward in the crash position,
speaker-worshipping until the wheels touch on planets alien.

- tobbias c. van Veen


tobias c. van Veen -----------
http://www.quadrantcrossing.org
http://www.thisistheonlyart.com
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