Plastikman
Slinky
MINUS99

As anticipation builds around Plastikman's forthcoming Arkives box set, Richie Hawtin sneaks up with something we weren't expecting: a new Plastikman single.

If you've heard Hawtin spin this summer, you're going to recognize Slinky as one of the highlights of his set: a blistering acid track that immediately stands out from today's standard-issue bassline techno hits. Ominous and insistent, it corkscrews deep into your brain, digging a wobbly 303 groove and hammering the point home with white-hot 909 snares. It's got all the hallmarks of classic Plastikman, from the octave-jumping acid lines to the white-knuckled, edge-of-your-seat suspense. In terms of intensity, it's right up there with "Glob" and "Spastik"?but, true to its name, it's slinkier and sexier, moving with a grinding, side-winding shuffle. It's quite a tricky business, rhythmically speaking, with unhinged triplet patterns slipping between the cracks of a stomping 4/4 beat. At several crucial points, the downbeat drops out, leaving you unmoored and bobbing dangerously out to sea.

It's thrills, chills, and spills galore, and the same goes for the B-side, Monkee, a properly minimalist jungle-drum groove made of dizzily syncopated toms and clean, linear 808 patter. It's a trip into the darkest recesses of the rainforest, complete with the screeching of unknown beasts. And, like "Slinky," the groove works two different ways, with three-against-four pulses tugging your brain in two directions at once. In a word: dizzying.

Beyond the obvious impact of both tracks, the single is particularly notable for being the first new Plastikman material since 2005's Nostalgik.2.

Or? is it? In the run-up to Arkives, Hawtin has hinted at a trove of unreleased Plastikman material, tracks that have never seen the light of day. Are these tracks part of that bounty? Or are they new expressions of the classic Plastikman style? Hawtin isn't saying?all we know is that they're absolutely devastating.