Sasha (DJ)
Alexander Paul Coe, known professionally as Sasha, is a Welsh DJ and record producer. He is best known for his live events and electronic music as a solo artist, as well as his collaborations with British DJ John Digweed as Sasha & John Digweed. He was voted as World No. 1 DJ in 2000 in a poll conducted by DJ Magazine. He is a four-time International Dance Music Awards winner, four-time DJ Awards winner and Grammy Award nominee.
Sasha began his career playing acid house music in the late 1980s. He partnered with John Digweed in 1993, touring internationally and producing a series of mix albums.
Sasha has remixed tracks for artists such as D-Ream, Madonna, Moby, the Chemical Brothers and Hot Chip. Sasha's remixing and production often combine electronic music genres, making it difficult for critics to pinpoint his musical style. As well as remixes and compilation albums, Sasha has produced three albums of original works: The Qat Collection in 1994, Airdrawndagger in 2002, and Scene Delete in 2016.
After achieving success as a producer and DJ, Sasha worked with younger DJs and producers such as BT and James Zabiela. His use of live audio engineering equipment helped popularise technological innovations among DJs who formerly relied on records and turntables. In 2007, he formed a record label with Renaissance Records called emFire, which is the exclusive outlet for his new music.
Early years
Sasha was born in Bangor, Wales, on 4 September 1969. His early musical taste was primarily Top 40 pop music like The The and The Police. After what he described as an "idyllic childhood", Sasha passed the entrance exam for Epsom College at age 17. However, he did not like Epsom and left before completing his A-Level examinations. Instead of continuing his schooling, Sasha moved to Bangor to live with his father and stepmother. Sasha's stepmother forced him to take piano lessons which, although he disliked them at the time, he ultimately found to be beneficial to his music career.Sasha became aware of electronic dance music in 1988 at The Haçienda, a Manchester dance venue. Drawn to the rough sound of acid house music and the rebellious attitude he associated with it, he visited Manchester weekly and soon moved to nearby Disley. Sasha purchased records and began to teach himself how to mix. A local DJ at a club Sasha frequented announced that he was looking for other DJs to travel with him on a regional tour; Sasha volunteered and made his first live appearance in nearby Stockport. He recalled 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."
Sasha soon found himself in debt due to low-paying performances and the many records he bought. To finance his record collection, he performed at illegal warehouse raves in the Blackburn and Blackpool areas. With the assistance of another local DJ, Jon DaSilva, Sasha secured work at The Haçienda, where he learned key mixing from DaSilva and refined his ability to beatmatch. Though he enjoyed playing at The Haçienda, in 1990 Sasha left for a club called Shelley's Laserdrome in Stoke-on-Trent. There, he established part of his signature sound by mixing euphoric acid house music with Italian piano house and emotional a cappellas. Because of his increased popularity and visibility at Shelley's, Mixmag featured Sasha on its first cover, under the headline "SASHA MANIA – THE FIRST DJ PINUP?". While continuing to DJ, Sasha began to produce several of his own dance tracks. This, he later noted, was contrary to the career paths of many successful DJs, for whom it was more common to start out as producers. Upon signing a recording contract, he also set up an entire recording studio at the same time, which led to a "painful learning curve" at the outset. He released his first Remix single, "Appolonia", The Sasha Mixes of the Italo House Track By Indie, under the name BM:Ex, with producer Tom Frederikse on Union City Recordings. After DJing at Shelley's for several years, Sasha left his position because of increasing gang violence in and around the club. As a result of his growing reputation, Sasha was offered work in several London and Australian clubs. He accepted, instead, a spot in the DJ rotation at Renaissance, a club night started by Geoff Oakes at Venue 44 in Mansfield, England.
Later in 1993, Sasha, collaborating with Danny Campbell for Pete Tong's FFRR, produced "Together", his first single under the name Sasha. "Together" peaked on the UK Singles Chart at No. 57. With this success, Sasha began a series of records for Deconstruction Records with the singles "Higher Ground" and "Magic" and The Qat Collection with Frederikse and vocalist Sam Mollison.
Career
Digweed era
In early 1993, Sasha partnered with fellow Renaissance DJ John Digweed. Sasha and Digweed honed their DJing skills, often performing in tandem and focusing on track selection and technical mixing abilities. Renaissance was pleased with their performances, and had the duo compile the triple-CD mix album Renaissance: The Mix Collection, releasing it on the club's own Renaissance Records label. The album featured tracks from such artists as Leftfield, Fluke, and 2 Bad Mice, and original productions and remixes from Sasha and Digweed. The Mix Collection was released soon after Sasha's departure from Renaissance in April 1994. Following his success at Renaissance, Sasha was again featured on Mixmag with the tagline "SON OF GOD?", though he resented the accolade. After touring together for two years, the duo became "true superstars" with the release of their double CD Northern Exposure on mega-label Ministry of Sound. Around this time, Sasha began a recurring mentorship and partnership with fellow producer BT with the album Ima. As well as providing guidance for BT, Sasha produced a "euphoric" and "introspective" 42-minute rendition of the album which formed the centrepiece of the UK release and appeared as a "bonus" second disc on the US release. He continued to advance his own production work by pairing with vocalist Maria Nayler to produce the single "Be as One", which reached No. 17 on the UK singles chart.In 1997, Ministry of Sound released Northern Exposure 2, Sasha and Digweed's next double-CD entry in their Northern Exposure series. To support the album, the duo toured internationally, and in the process helped to define the sound of trance music in the late 1990s. After extensive touring, Digweed and Sasha took up residency at New York City's famous Twilo nightclub, where they would DJ for the entire night. In 1998, the two released separate mix albums on the Boxed label, as part of the Global Underground series: Digweed's Global Underground 006: Sydney, and Sasha's Global Underground 009: San Francisco, which drew from his experience touring on the West Coast of the United States. Both DJs formed their own record labels that year: Sasha created Excession Records and Digweed started Bedrock Records. Excession released fewer than ten records, the last in 1998; the experience, however, led Sasha to found the management agency Excession: The Agency LTD. Excession remains a booking agency for many DJs, including Hybrid, Nick Warren, and Steve Lawler.
Sasha reached a more mainstream audience with his remixes of Madonna's "Ray of Light" and GusGus's "Purple" for those artists' single releases. His success in pop music led him to score the music for the PlayStation video game Wipeout 3. In 1999, Sasha and Digweed reunited in the studio to record their third edition in the Northern Exposure series, Northern Exposure: Expeditions. In addition to mixing and DJing, Sasha joined Charlie May of Spooky to produce the Xpander EP, the title track of which many clubbers still view as "one of the greatest trance tracks of all time". He used the title track as a centerpiece for Global Underground 013: Ibiza, his second Global Underground release. Sasha continued his collaborations with BT on the track "Ride", which was released as a single on Yoshitoshi Records and on BT's Movement in Still Life. Soon after, he worked with Underworld's Darren Emerson on the single "Scorchio", Sasha's first charting single in four years. In between touring and producing original material, Sasha and Digweed released the mix album Communicate in 2000, prompting them to temporarily leave their Twilo residency for a promotional tour of the United States. Communicate had mixed reviews: Spin stated that despite a "few stellar moments, is ultimately a let-down". LAUNCHcast, too, described Communicate as "boring and lackluster...stalled in a monochrome world of dead beats".
During the late 1990s, the increased popularity and visibility of "superstar DJs" led to the creation of superclubs such as Liverpool's Cream and Sheffield's Gatecrasher. By 2003, however, electronic dance music clubs languished. The Guardian's pop critic, Alexis Petridis, attributed the "terminal decline" of dance music to its over-commercialisation by big-name DJs, such as Sasha, and to their demands for increased fees for performances. Though dance music had been declared "dead" by many in the dance industry, Sasha continued to tour—despite the closing of many superclubs, including his resident club Twilo in May 2001.
After the closing of Twilo, Sasha and Digweed embarked on their ambitious Delta Heavy Tour of the United States in 2002. Featuring veteran tour producer Kevin Lyman and opening act Jimmy Van M, the tour covered 31 cities and played to 85,000 people. The appearances, complete with laser shows and video production, were more akin to rock concerts than to typical DJ events. This development was new to the DJing scene, and compelled other DJs to host similar concerts. 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, retrospectively 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 frequent independent touring prevented any substantial collaboration for a long period after Delta Heavy.