Plastikman
Closer

It may seem anachronistic to review such a niche and not exactly recent album (we're talking about 2003), but the fifth installment of the Plastikman project by the brilliant musician Richie Hawtin has left its mark, and continues to do so, especially on my iPod, so I would say a review is at the very least deserved.

Closer comes 5 years after the masterpiece "Consumed", at a time when it seemed the artist had abandoned this minimal techno side project for his more dancefloor-oriented works. The planning itself seems like a mathematical equation, in fact, it's the 5th album under this pseudonym and also one of the most difficult to evaluate. Experienced listeners immediately realized it's a single piece in ten movements, with a total length of 75 minutes. An endless, symmetrical, alienating, and coldly calculated journey. Is it a perfect record? It depends on your point of view. It's very difficult to talk about flaws, but rather effects, those cynically planned by the Australian musician. This, like the others, is a product of minimal techno faithful to the Detroit school, but at the same time, the result represents a peak all of Richie's own, there's nothing else comparable on the market, then as now. A difficult record, for adventurous minds who love the genre, but above all recognize the legitimacy of electronic music isolated from the dance context. Call it IDM or whatever you want, but Richie's is still another matter, digital discipline that requires the acceptance of monotony as an intrinsic element of artistic representation. One must play along and surrender to one's emotions, the playing field is all in our head, as the author has explained many times, minimalism is a result, not a device, obtained from the extreme deconstruction of music.

The album opens with the dark "Ask Yourself", where Richie's much-discussed filtered voice appears, in the role of an evil Cicero on this unhealthy journey. The effect didn't bother me at all, despite the criticisms, it represents more than a glue, a glimpse of desperate humanity on the chilly construct of machines. It talks about moods, love relationships, masochism, which in a certain sense, or from certain minds resistant to this music, could represent a metaphor for listening to this record. The first part unfolds on the wave of unexpected eclecticism, "Mind Encode" retrieves the libraries of Consumed, as in a sinister follow-up, "Lost" even turns to ambient making extensive use of the new pads set up by Richie. Unexpectedly rich textures, capable of creating a great atmosphere, culminating with the stunning "Disconnect". From here begins the central part, represented by "Slow Poke", "Headcase" and "Ping Pong", about 30 minutes of sounds at the minimum wage, extreme and sought-after monotony, bleeps, cell phones, and drained beats for a completely dehumanized, alienating, distressing scenario. This is the weakest part of the record, if it weren't for the fact that it is a scrupulously planned operation to lead the listener to the final suite, the remaining 30 minutes of "Mind In Rewind", "I No" and "I Don't Know" contrast with a totally antithetical richness, of epic scale, where the sounds of the first albums (including the T-303) and the same sense of wonder from "Consumed" return. A persistent bass accompanies all three tracks, on which Richie assembles complex and hypnotic sonic structures. An icy and relentless geometry that brilliantly resolves all the frustration and expectations matured in the central part. It's possible to feel practically the whole previous discography, all the stages that have characterized the Plastikman project, making it clear how this represents the definitive stage.

In practice, it is a compilation that doesn't sound like one, where eclecticism moves and animates a homogeneous, independent, and accomplished structure. Few artists in the world can boast such skill. This perhaps doesn't make Closer a perfect work, certainly not a record designed to please everyone, but remains the creation of a brilliant mind, able to inspire on multiple levels, a great adventure for those who possess the right sensory coordinates. Richie is now ready to return to animate the wildest dancefloors with his pounding techno, for us remains these inscrutable works, seductive sirens in our boundless mental ocean.