Richie Hawtin just released the next evolution of his award-winning ‘CLOSE live’ show, his audiovisual mix album CLOSE COMBINED (GLASGOW, LONDON, TOKYO – LIVE).
The album combines performances from the CLOSE live run of shows in 2018. Including performances live from Glasgow, Tokyo, and London. The footage is combined with crowd-sourced footage to create a seamless and immersive audiovisual experience. The release is an experiment designed to bring greater transparency to the underlying art of DJing in the “press-play” era.
The a/v album is presented in a unique three-panel vertical layout allowing the viewer to observe distinct visual perspectives from the CLOSE performances – crowd view, stage set-up, and equipment close-ups – bringing the audience closer to the creative impulse that drives Hawtin’s performance.
Hawtin wanted to bring more transparency to his art as a producer and a DJ. In a modern era of skepticism with “press-play” DJs, his evolutionary and visionary style as a performer is taking house to a new level.
“I believe that as our scene has become more popular, the definition of DJing has become more narrow. I want to be as transparent as possible in how, why and what I play in order to bring focus onto the intuitive spontaneity that is at the heart of a great DJ performance.”
- Richie Hawtin
Officially launched at Coachella in 2017, the ‘CLOSE live’ experiment was first tested on an unsuspecting audience at Unsound Festival in Krakow, Poland in 2016. Since then, the show has been featured all around the world. Festivals like Sónar, Primavera Sound, Nuits Sonores, concerts at The Roundhouse in London, L’Olympia in Paris, and the Sydney Opera House have all witnessed the immersive ‘CLOSE live’ show.
The multi-platform (audio and visual) is fully available now on YouTube, Apple Music, and Facebook Video. The audio-only version is also available, now on all digital music stores via Hawtin’s own Plus 8 Records.
Stream the New Richie Hawtin Album Close Combined Now