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Sasha (DJ)

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Sasha
Sasha
Background information
OriginWales
Years active1989-Present

Sasha, born Alexander Coe on September 4, 1969, is a Welsh DJ and record producer. Starting out in the late 1980's spinning acid house, he eventually rose as a central figure in the popularization of electronic dance music. After meeting John Digweed, Sasha toured internationally with Digweed and the two created several mix albums together. Sasha and Digweed helped spread progressive trance and house in the 1990's with their Northern Exposure albums and Global Underground series releases. Sasha has also produced several charting singles and performed remixes for many popular artists such as Madonna and The Chemical Brothers.

Sasha has made a lasting mark on the electronic dance music community as a symbol of dance club culture. In addition, he has been a direct influence on younger popular DJs and producers such as Brian Transeau and James Zabiela who have shaped modern dance music. By embracing modern mixing methods through his use of Ableton Live and the CDJ1000, Sasha popularized modern technological innovations among DJs who had previously relied only on records and turntables.

Early years

Sasha was born and raised in the small Welsh town of Hawarden. Even from a young age, he enjoyed literature and music. As a child, his earliest exposure to music was primarily Motown records.. Later, he listened to pop music such as The The and The Police.At the age of 17 after what he described as an "idyllic childhood", he passed the entrance exam for Epsom School. However, he did not enjoy his time there and left before his A-Levels. He then moved to Bangor to be with his father in Northern Wales. His stepmother forced him to take piano lessons, which he claims he hated at the time, but ultimately found beneficial.

Early electronic music experience

Sasha first gained exposure to electronic music through the popular Manchester dance club Haçienda in 1988. He was drawn to both the acid house music and the attitude he found associated with it. After many weekly visits to Manchester, he eventually moved to Disley, sharing an apartment with a friend. After he obtained a job in telemarketing, his collection of acid house records grew. Eventually, a DJ in a local pub announced he was looking for other DJs to tour with him. Sasha volunteered and made his debut in nearby Stockport. Sasha said of his debut: "I'd never even touched a Technics: I thought the pitch control was the volume, I didn't even know where to plug my headphones in! I'm sure I was absolutely horrendous." Haçienda DJ Jon DaSilva helped Sasha obtain a gig at the club. Sasha continued to DJ at Haçienda as well as at illegal raves in Blackburn and Blackpool. He worked for a few years building up his record collection, though he found himself in debt due to both the massive number of records he bought and the low pay he received for gigs. He taught himself to beatmatch and learned key mixing from DaSilva.

Eventually, Sasha obtained a gig at Shelley's in Stoke-on-Trent in 1991. There, he established part of his signature sound by mixing euphoric trance music with hard techno and emotional a cappellas. In 1991, Sasha was the first DJ featured on the cover of Mixmag with the line "SASHA MANIA - THE FIRST DJ PINUP?". In 1992, he released his first single "Appolonia" under the name "BM:Ex" (Barry Manilow Experience) on Union City Recordings with Tom Frederikse. He left his residency at Shelley's due to increased gang activity and violence in and around the club. Due to his stay at Shelley's, he was offered several gigs in London and Australia, but eventually obtained a consistent spot in the rotation at Renaissance in 1993. That same year Sasha produced his first single under the name Sasha with Danny Campbell called "Together" on Pete Tong's FFRR which peaked on the UK charts at #57.

Digweed era

Renaissance - The Mix Collection, Sasha & Digweed's first mix album
Main article: Sasha & John Digweed

John Digweed had been DJ-ing for ten years before getting a gig at Renaissance where he met Sasha. Their partnership started during Sasha's final performances at Renaissance. Together, Sasha and John Digweed honed their DJ-ing skills, often performing in tandem while focusing on track selection and technical mixing abilities. Sasha also began his series of productions for Deconstruction Records with "Higher Ground" and "Magic" (for which Digweed performed remix duties) as well as The Qat Collection with vocalist Sam Mollison.

In 1994, Sasha and Digweed released the triple CD mix album Renaissance - The Mix Collection on Renaissance Records, which was actually released after Sasha left Renaissance. It contained many popular dance hits of the time from artist such as Leftfield, Fluke, and 2 Bad Mice as well as original productions and remixes from the duo themselves. Also in 1994, Sasha was featured on Mixmag with the tag line "SON OF GOD?", which Sasha resented. Two years later, the duo became "true superstars" with the release of their double CD Northern Exposure on mega-label Ministry of Sound. This release was brought to the United States the next year in a single CD package on Ultra Records. In 1995, Sasha began his recurring mentorship and partnership with fellow producer BT on the album Ima. For the second CD of the album, Sasha provided a "euphoric" and "introspective" 42 minute rendition of the album's first disc. Sasha continued to advance his production work by teaming with Maria Nayler to produce the top 20 hit "Be As One".

File:Sashadigweed.jpg
Sasha and John Digweed promotional photo

1997 saw the release of the Northern Exposure 2 double CD mix album, again on Ministry of Sound. Sasha and Digweed toured internationally, helping define the sound of trance music in the late '90s. That same year, Digweed and Sasha took up residency at New York City's famous Twilo nightclub. In 1998, Digweed and Sasha released separate mix albums on Boxed as part of the Global Underground series with Digweed's GU 006: Sydney and Sasha's GU 009: San Francisco release. Sasha's album drew from his experiences while touring on the West Coast of the United States. Around this time, both DJs formed their own record labels; Sasha created Excession Records and Digweed created Bedrock Records. Excession featured less than ten releases, the last of which was in 1998. Sasha began to reach more mainstream audiences when he was asked to remix Madonna's "Ray of Light" and Gus Gus's "Purple" for their releases as singles. He also accepted the an offer to score the music for the PlayStation video game Wipeout 3.

In 1999, Sasha and Digweed released their third edition in the Northern Exposure series: Northern Exposure: Expeditions. With Charlie May of Spooky, Sasha produced his Xpander EP on Deconstruction, which many clubbers view as "one of the greatest trance tracks of all time". He used the title track as one of the centerpieces for GU 013: Ibiza, his second Global Underground release. Sasha continued his collaborations on BT's Movement in Still Life on the track "Ride", which was also released as a single on Yoshitoshi Records. He also worked with Underworld's Darren Emerson on their single "Scorchio." In addition to Sasha and Digweed's Twilo residency, they toured the United States heavily, especially to promote their DJ mix Communicate in 2000.

File:Delta Heavy.jpg
Delta Heavy DVD cover

Delta Heavy Tour

In 2002, Sasha and Digweed embarked with Jimmy Van M on their "Delta Heavy Tour" across the United States. The tour was produced by Warped Tour creator Kevin Lyman. The tour covered 31 cities and played to 85,000 people in total. Concerts of Delta Heavy, complete with laser shows and video production, were more akin to rock concerts than typical DJ events. This was new for the DJ-ing scene and encouraged other DJs to do the same. In 2006, a DVD of performance highlights, interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage was released as Sasha & John Digweed present Delta Heavy by System Recordings. Ben Turner, creator of the DanceStar awards, described the Delta Heavy tour as "a landmark moment for electronic music". Though the duo of Sasha and Digweed never explicitly split up, demanding schedules and touring have prevented them from any substantial collaborative efforts since Delta Heavy.

Post Digweed

Later in 2002, Sasha began collaborations with big beat artist Junkie XL. Together, Sasha and Junkie XL wrote and produced the single "Breezer." Junkie XL, along with Charlie May, also collaborated with Sasha on Sasha's long-awaited artist album, Airdrawndagger. Airdrawndagger had been in the works for a long period of time, due to Sasha's desire for the album to be "as near to perfection as possible," according to BT. It generally garnered favorable reviews, though it did receive some criticism for not being as solid and well put together as Sasha's DJ mixes. The styles of music of Airdrawndagger are generally more laid back and less percussion drive than the records Sasha played at dance clubs. Sasha claims that a March 2001 traffic accident in which he suffered a perforated ear drum helped inspire the music of the album. Additionally, Sasha held an amateur remix contest for the album's first single Wavy Gravy. Due to the success of the contest, Sasha released elements of all the tracks for Airdrawndagger on his website to be downloaded and remixed by fans.

Sasha on the cover of Involver

Sasha's next studio effort, Involver, was "a fusion of mix album and production record," which consisted mainly of Sasha's reworkings of tracks by other artists. Originally, he had been signed with Global Underground to do another normal mix album, but he found the process unrewarding. Instead, he decided to combine his production and DJ-ing talents for a single compilation that resembled a "real" album. Like much of Sasha's other work at the time, it was put together using Ableton Live. For the final mix he also used Logic Pro.

In 2005, Sasha produced his album Fundacion, which was based on his nights DJ-ing New York's Fundacion club. It was the first album to ever be mixed using Sasha's Maven controller. The next year Sasha released 10,000 copies of a June 2006 DJ set for sale using Instant Live, making him the first DJ to use Instant Live's licensing and publishing services.

Musical genres

Sasha has stated on several occasions that he does not like to associate himself with a specific genre of music. In his early years, influenced by the sound of Hacienda, Sasha embraced acid house. As the '90s began, he began to play out more Italian house music. During his residence at Shelley's, he began to experiment more with American house and other music which he described as "happy". At Renaissance, he played a lot of the popular house music of the time such as that of Moby, 2 Bad Mice, and Leftfield. In his first collaboration with John Digweed, Northern Exposure, Sasha's music was described as "epic house". Over his next few mix album, Sasha popularized progressive trance by artists such as Sven Vath, Matt Darey, Tilt, and Armin Van Buuren. Along with his Xpander EP, his late mix albums of the 1990's were distinguished by their progressive house nature. In Sasha's constant rotation around this time were records by artists such as Space Manoeuvres, BT, Breeder, and especially Sander Kleinenberg's single "My Lexicon".

With Sasha and Digweed's Communicate album in 2000, their work took a step towards a housier sound with pieces by Morel, Mainline, and Jimmy Van M. These tracks utilized a hard bassline rather than the floaty keyboards of previous mix albums. With Airdrawndagger, Sasha was heavily influenced by ambient and trance music. In it, he used strong melodies with more minimal percussion and breakbeats. Involver fully embraced a fusion of breakbeats and progressive house characterized heavily by UNKLE and Lostep. 2005's Fundacion saw Sasha's new breed of progressive house tracks with work by James Holden, Tiefschwarz, and Swayzak.

Sasha has commented that he feels he has been "pigeon-holed" into playing progressive house, and considers his most recent material to be somewhere in the middle of house, trance, and breaks.

Techniques and technology

Sasha during a July 15, 2006 performance at Panama, an Amsterdam nightclub

Sasha attributes his success as a DJ to his technical skills and his ability to connect to the dance floor. During his sets, he tries to maintain a balance between new and experimental material while making sure "the party is still rocking'". With regards to mix albums, Sasha states that going in he only has a vague idea of the tracklist for the album. Because of this, he says that his albums never quite turn out the way he expects.

Sasha is famous for embracing new technology innovations for both his studio work and live DJ-ing. He and John Digweed used Pro Tools for mixing their compilation albums, unlike their live performances where they used turntables and records. For their remixing efforts, however, they used an Atari machine (which was considered obsolete by this time) with Notator software. In the 1990's and early 2000's, he often used CDJ1000s with Allen & Heath mixers and Fireworx. Sasha began using Ableton Live as a third turntable around 2005. He explored its functionality and realized he could do everything he wanted in it. He then co-developed the "Maven" controller to use to dissect tracks for use with the software. During DJ sets, clubbers often believe he is spinning new, unheard remixes, but in fact, Sasha is often playing tweaks of tracks he created in Ableton. He most often uses the built-in plugins due to stability and performance issues. For the first public performance of Involver material, Sasha used a PowerBook running Ableton. Sasha's typical recent setup is an iMac G5 and Ableton Live, which he says allows for a good deal of spontaneity while DJ-ing.

Sasha states that the internet has greatly affected the way he obtains music. Formerly, he used to hunt through record shops for new records, but now, he regularly receives new tracks from producers and labels through the internet. Every week, Sasha receives hundreds of new tracks which he and others edit down for use in his live DJ sets.

Influence

Early in his DJ-ing career, Sasha was heavily influenced by Jon DaSilva and other pioneers of acid house in Manchester. As he became a more prominent figure in the dance music industry, Sasha influenced many other upcoming DJs. He discovered and "nurtured" Brian Transeau during the time they produced together. Additionally, he also heavily influenced Junkie XL's work. He also took James Zabiela "under his wing", showing him the CDJ1000 and having Zabiela join his Excession DJ agency. Their trips to the United States also extended their influence to already popular American DJs such as Kimball Collins. In 1998, Sasha founded "Excession: The Agency LTD." with Tara Morgan, which is currently the booking agency for many popular DJs including Hybrid, Nick Warren, Steve Lawler, James Lavelle, and Desyn Masiello along with Sasha's former collaborators James Zabiela and Spooky.

Popularity and Honors

Sasha has been one of the most consistently popular among dance music fans, as he has been voted into the top five DJs in the world by readers of DJMag every year since 1997, including finishing #1 in 2000 and #2 only to partner John Digweed in 2001. At the annual Winter Music Conference, Sasha has won the "Best Techno/Trance 12"" award for the "Xpander EP" and "Best CD Compilation" awards for both Global Underground: Ibiza and Involver. He has also been nominated for "Best European DJ" and "Best Remixer". At the 1999 Ericsson Muzik Awards, he was given the award for "Outstanding Contribution to Dance Music". Sasha has been nominated as top DJ in his genre every since 2000 in the DJ Awards, but has not won.

In 2005, the Grammy committee debated over whether Involver was eligible for nomination. After deciding that it was eligible, the full academy did not nominate it, though Sasha did receive a Grammy nomination for his remix of "Watching Cars Go By" by Felix Da Housecat that same year.

Selected discography

Albums:

Singles/EPs:

DVD:

Notes and references

  1. ^ Kidzworld interview(link) (Retrieved 6 July 2006).
  2. Resident Advisor profile (link) (Retrieved 6 July 2006).
  3. ^ "Sasha speaks", BBC Wales (link) (Retrieved July 11, 2006.
  4. ^ SoundRevolt biography (link) (Retrieved 6 July 2006).
  5. ^ Dresden, Dave. DJ Times interview with Sasha.(link).
  6. "Sasha - Standing the Test of Time", Resident Advisor, 18 October 2004 (link).
  7. ^ BBC's Sasha biography (link) (Retrieved 6 July 2006).
  8. Prato, Greg, John Digweed biography, All Music Guide (link).
  9. Discogs.com entry for "Sasha" (link).
  10. ^ Brewster, Bill. Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, (Grove Press, 2000), ISBN 0802136885.
  11. ^ Birchmeier, Jason, Sasha + John Digweed biography, All Music Guide (link).
  12. Bidder, Sean. The Rough Guide to House Music. (Rough Guides, 1999), ISBN 1858284325.
  13. ^ Prato, Greg, Sasha biography, All Music Guide (link).
  14. DJMixed.com's Interview with Rockstar Games and Psygnosis (link) (Retrieved July 11, 2006).
  15. Cooper, Sean, Spooky biography, All Music Guide (link).
  16. Snoman, Rick. Dance Music Manual: Toys, Tools, and Techniques, (Focus Press, 2004).
  17. ^ Turner, Ben, "Sasha & John Digweed - Delta Heavy: A DVD Documentary", Progressive-Sounds, 7 February 2006(link).
  18. ^ Juarez, Vanessa, "DJ Sasha on Dance Music's Glowstick Culture", Newsweek, 3 February 2006 (link).
  19. ^ Sasha interview, Progressive-Sounds, February 2006 (link).
  20. Sasha interview, Gighit.com (link).
  21. Discogs.com entry for "Beauty Never Fades/Breezer" (discogs.com link).
  22. Swan, Glenn, Airdrawndagger review, All Music Guide (link).
  23. Jones, Simon, BT interview, Progressive-Sounds, December 2001 (link).
  24. Metacritic reviews page, (link)
  25. Review of Airdrawndagger, E!Online (link).
  26. Jones, Simon, Review of Airdrawndagger, Progressive-Sounds, 3 July 2002 (link).
  27. WAVY GRAVY REMIX CONTEST WINNER ANNOUNCED (link).
  28. "Sasha's Freedom of Airdrawndagger", Resident Advisor, 24 February 2003 (link).
  29. ^ Romero, Dennis, "Building a Better DJ", Los Angeles CityBeat, 24 June 2004 (link).
  30. ^ Schaal, Tilmann, "DJ Sasha: Crossfade into the Digital Domain", Apple.com (link).
  31. "Sasha Fundacionnyc Mix", DJMixed.com (link) (Retrieved July 10, 2006).
  32. Paoletta, Michael, "Sasha Plans Live DJ Mixes", Billboard, May 24, 2006 (link).
  33. ^ "Sasha & Digweed", Rolling Stone Album Guide, Fourth Edition, 2004.
  34. ^ Ben Blue, "Sasha - Fundacion NYC Interview" (link) (Retrieved July 8, 2006).
  35. Gerrish, Bruce. Remix: The Electronic Music Explosion", (ArtistPro, 2001).
  36. McGeachin, Nick, "Exclusive Interview with Sasha", Allen & Heath Website, July 14, 2004 (link) (Retrieved July 11, 2006).
  37. "DJ Sasha talks Macs and Ableton", Macworld, June 26, 2006 (link), (Retrieved July 7, 2006).
  38. Progressive-Sounds Interview with Junkie XL (link) (Retrieved July 10, 2006).
  39. About.com James Zabiela - Alive Review(link) (Retrieved July 10, 2006).
  40. Excession LTD Website (link) (Retrieved July 11, 2006).
  41. DJMag Website (link).
  42. Winter Music Conference Website (link) (Retrieved July 10, 2006).
  43. "Sasha tops DJ poll", BBC News, November 20, 2000 (link) (Retrieved July 8, 2006).
  44. Romero, Dennis, "In a Grammy Groove", Los Angeles CityBeat, February 17, 2005 (link).
  45. Billboard Chart rankings gathered from Billboard.com (Retrieved June 7, 2006).
  46. UK Chart rankings gathered from Chartstats.com (Retrieved June 7, 2006).

External links

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