There was a point in 1993 when it was possible to conflate the likes of Aphex Twin and Plastikman. With their iconic avatars, both of these electronica artistic entities spoke to Philip Dick-ian replicas with their names, and both made exemplary album statements that year, Richard D. James with Selected Ambient Works II and the latter –the primary alias of producer Richard Michael Hawtin—with his acid to-the-point-of-blotter-cover Sheet One. While both albums were minimal to the point of being psychotropic, it was only here that two of the greatest electronic artists were at this nexus. Aphex Twin would embrace drill’n’bass, acid, and twisted singles that doubled as maximal pop, achieving cult of personality status before all but dropping out of view (at least until this month). Conversely, Hawtin went deeper into minimalism while also remaining one of the most respected and prolific producers/remixers/DJs of the last twenty years.
Pushing into new realms, which included spelunking ever deeper into the sonic depths of Detroit and Berlin-styled minimal techno across his imprints, Plus 8, Probe and M_nus, Hawtin is that rare tireless electronic artist, booking residencies in Ibiza as well as multimedia installations in art museums. His extensive, high-caliber back catalog makes him the minimal techno Tim Duncan, spanning from the early '90s pared-down masters like Jeff Mills, Dan Bell, and Robert Hood to the Berlin “minimal trinity” alongside Ricardo Villalobos and Magda in the new century. While he retired the Plastikman moniker after the glum break-up vocalizations of 2003’s Closer, an invitation last year to perform at the Guggenheim’s 2013 International Gala in New York City led Hawtin to revive the moniker.
While crafted for a onetime live performance, Ex isn’t quite a live album. It’s seven original tracks (all beginning with “Ex-“) that clock in just a hair under an hour. It’s better to conceive of Ex holistically, rather than as seven individual tracks—in part because the album's distinct parts tend to blend into one another, with little to differentiate them. One might not know of the illuminated monolith that was situated in the museum’s rotunda while listening to the album, but it’s easy to imagine a beacon of some sort amid the slow opening 303 throbs of “EXposed”; when Hawtin sets the 303 to its most caustic, it’s fun to imagine said light source being turned into a bug zapper for the glitterati in attendance.
But long stretches of Ex find Hawtin twisting knobs not for sustained release but to make sure everything doesn't grind to a halt. The squelching melody at the center of “EXposed” is vintage Hawtin that fans will undoubtedly recognize, but for an artist able to exact psychedelic profundity from agonizingly slow filter sweeps, there are spans where he has nowhere to go with the 303, the components of “EXtend” not quite pressurizing to warrant release. The slow, steady movement from the spacious yet foreboding span from “EXplore” into “EXpire” is a move from valley to plateau (peaking with the aural hallucination of skittering percussion and synthesized orchestras) that feels like Hawtin at his most cinematic and ecstatic. But aside from a glimpse of such a peak, one wonders what reviving the Plastikman moniker achieved that night in the museum, aside from proving the futility of wishing one could go back in time twenty years.
