Sasha - Indestructible DJ
Representing: Bangor, Wales
Style: House
Best Known For: Being around for almost twenty years and still not slowing down.

Born Alexander Coe, Sasha is one of the world’s legendary house DJs. His experimentations with both technology (he’s an Ableton fan who uses software to his full advantage) and the different subgenres of house music span a long period of time, and a multitude of styles. Starting out with acid house in the late eighties, Sasha moved on to darker Euro-house, American house, pop house, “epic house,” progressive, deep house, and basically explored and more importantly, expanded on every inch of house music, until his current style, which he describes as a blend of trance, house, and breaks.

Like other DJs such as Above and Beyond, Sasha did not start out listening to dance music – his earliest influences were Top 40 pop songs. Of course, for someone who’s been around for a while, Sasha has seen pretty much all the ups and downs that would be present in any illustrious DJing career. One of these high points takes us back to the mid nineties, when Sasha was featured on MixMag with this tagline: “SON OF GOD?” Over the top? Maybe, but considering the revolutionary changes that he introduced to the dance music world, it might just be fitting. Residencies at the biggest clubs in Ibiza and the States was a given. Moving on to the new millennium though, club culture was, to put it bluntly, dying. The superclubs that had just begun to spring up were already packing up because the over-commercialization of dance music (which is still a touchy issue today) did not appeal to club-goers – the integrity of the culture, not to mention concert prices, hit clubbers hard.

Of course, you can always count on your friends to help you through the hard times, and a bright spot in this chaotic period was definitely Sasha’s partnership with fellow house DJ Digweed. The duo that started the “Northern Exposure” movement, Sasha & Digweed played a huge part in the growth of house and trance, and found much success with the Ministry of Sound clubbing empire. Their Delta Heavy Tour in 2002 made them rock stars of electronic music, and started a new trend of DJ shows complete with pop-concert-style lighting and atmosphere.

After the tour, Sasha collaborated with other artists (like Junkie XL), and focused more on his own projects. Being a triple threat –producer, remixer, DJ – he had numerous opportunities to test out the sounds of different genres, which led to some interesting productions. In 2002, Sasha’s long-awaited debut album, Airdrawndagger, was released to (maybe not surprisingly) a mixed response. Even though he took a while with it, wanting it to be “as near to perfection as possible,” the overall reaction to it was that of bewilderment because of the unexpected genre-mixing. In 2004, Sasha released Involver, an album with his interpretations of original tracks (Invol2ver, the sequel, is coming out soon), and a year later, he released Fundacion NYC, which was inspired by his experiences DJing in New York. Last year, Sasha formed his own label, emFire, which will handle the releases of future material. With his track record so far, it won’t be easy to pin down what it will sound like, but it is certain that it will get people talking.

Links:
www.djsasha.com
Sasha on Myspace