Techno veteran Richie Hawtin aims to educate a new generation of ravers with his grassroots-esque “From Our Minds – To Be Announced” North American tour. A play on his Plus 8 imprint’s ethos and slogan, “From Our Minds to Yours,” the tour will traverse eight United States and Canadian cities later this year.
The bus tour is not a new concept, but it is clever. For context, the tour is an offshoot of the concept that the techno head previously championed during his CNTRL tours in 2012 and 2015. Hawtin dropped by college cities via bus then, performing live sets and holding educational lectures and workshops on techno’s origins and the sounds that created the genre.
As the increasingly popular genre, originally developed and honed underground in Detroit in the ’80s, proliferates and becomes more commercialized in the dance space, Hawtin is prepared to provide context to a new generation and reignite the fervent love for techno that exists among dance music enthusiasts along the way. Hawtin is bringing along a myriad number of artists whose craft is primarily techno, though there is a speckling of the techno-adjacent, minimal, acid-techno, and techno-futurist among them. This is fitting, considering that the nature of the techno is cross-generational and spectacularly genre-inclusive, after all.
“Since starting my first label +8 in 1990, it’s always been important for me to help nurture, develop, and promote new like-minded artists,” says Hawtin. “Today with the ever-growing popularity and globalization of techno, it’s critical to collaborate with the next generation, learning from one another and pushing forward together with open-minded curiosity.”
From Detroit to New York, Toronto and across the South West, Hawtin is tapping independent promoters, intimate warehouses, and rising techno talents and mainstays for the tour, including Decoder, Barbosa, Declan James, Jay York, Lindsay Herbert, Michelle Sparks, Detroit’s own Henry Brooks, and many more.
Hawtin is headlining the tour, of course, with each venue’s location to be announced the day of each show. The tour kicks off on March 10 in Detroit and culminates in San Diego on March 18. Tickets are available for purchase on From Our Minds.
Featured image: Skinny InoDai
