Sasha

North Wales native Sasha became one of the world's most renowned and popular DJs, known for populist fusions of house, techno, and trance. Starting out in the late '80s as a club DJ, the former Alexander Coe got his first big break when he was hired by the dance club Shelly's to spin and rework popular sounds of the day. It was there that the young DJ found fame with the dance and house crowd, but it wasn't until he started laying down his grooves at the Haçienda and Renaissance that he become known nationally and, eventually, globally. It was while still at Renaissance that Sasha met another DJ, John Digweed. The two became a remixing team and soon released the first volume of Northern Exposure, a series of mix albums that also functioned as a collection of the duo's remixes for other producers. The duo toured behind the release, visiting the U.S., Australia, South Africa, and Southeast Asia. Sasha refused to limit himself to DJ work, however; he collaborated with singer Maria Naylor on the Top 20 U.K. pop hit "Be as One," and remixed tracks from such popular artists as the Pet Shop Boys, Simply Red, and M People. He also formed his own record company, Excession Recordings, and wrote originals for Deconstruction. In late 1997, another Sasha + John Digweed compilation appeared, Northern Exposure, Vol. 2, available in both East Coast and West Coast versions (each contained completely different songs). He released several mix albums on his own, as well, including multiple volumes in the Global Underground series (San Francisco and Ibiza). A rare production release, the Xpander EP, became a dancefloor hit in 1999. The mix album Communicate followed a year later, and in 2002, he scored an American record deal with Kinetic and released his first production full-length, Airdrawndagger. His next major record project, Involver, was a fusion of mix album and production record, consisting of his own exclusive remixes of tracks from UNKLE and Ulrich Schnauss, among others. Another inclusion, Felix da Housecat's "Watching Cars Go By," was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical. Subsequent volumes Invol2ver and Invol<3r were issued in 2008 and 2013. A creative departure titled Scene Delete, a flowing sequence of ambient productions, was released through LateNightTales in 2016. A remix EP, Scene Delete: Remixes #3, dropped the following year. Sasha continued to issue singles, including collaborations with Polica ("Out of Time"), Dems ("True"), and Alan Fitzpatrick ("El Jefe"), closing the decade with tracks such as 2019's "The Lights." ~ Greg Prato