Richie Hawtin’s ‘From Our Minds’ tour promotes a fairer music ecosystem via Aslice
The revenue-sharing platform profits those whose music is played during sets
Richie Hawtin’s ‘From Our Minds’ tour kicked off on March 10 at the birthplace of techno — Detroit.
From there, the techno pioneer will travel to a string of underground venues and warehouses across the US and Canada.
The tour works with independent local promoters and aims to showcase the next generation of techno artists who will perform alongside Hawtin; Barbosa, Declan James, Decoder, Henry Brooks, Jay York, Lindsey Herbert and Michelle Sparks.
Another key feature of the tour plays on Hawtin’s vision towards addressing the pay gap that often occurs in the electronic music industry.
Partnering with Aslice, a “community-driven” revenue-sharing service, the tour’s participating DJs pledge a percentage of their fee (a suggested 5%) to songwriters and producers whose tracks are played during the sets.
Aslice was founded in 2021 by American DJ-slash-producer Zak Khutoretsky aka DVS1 and focuses on proposing a fairer music ecosystem for the electronic music industry.
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It’s a software-based service that uses Machine Learning technology to match and distribute money to producers included on a playlist, meaning they get compensated for original music played at gigs.
According to the press release, Aslice can potentially garner an estimated US$55 million annually in royalties to be given to music producers.
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“The data built during this tour will demonstrate the positive impact achievable when everyone contributes fairly to our music ecosystem,” explains Khutoretsky.
Aslice’s CEO, Ethan Holben, adds “This collaboration is not only the blueprint for how communities can look after their own, but also the proof of how Aslice’s technology can be a novel data source for publishers and collections societies to get playlist info that was previously unavailable.”
‘From Our Minds’ is the follow-up to Hawtin’s previous ‘CNTRL’ tours from 2012 and 2015. In it, he focused on educating a new generation towards the sound and origins of techno through a lecture-based experience and live sets.
Learn more about Aslice here.
Amira Waworuntu is Mixmag Asia’s Managing Editor, follow her on Instagram.
