Let's Party Like It's 1999
Something old today, as it's been a while since we looked back instead of forward here at Groovin' You. A seminal classic from Sasha (aka Alexander Coe), the man who made the progressive sound famous - together with long time DJ partner John Digweed. As well as a bunch of remixes for various artists, he has put out a small but high quality selection of work under his own name. It's often said that his production skills are not up to scratch and that the reason his output sounds so good is due to the people he collaborates with (producers such as Charlie May, Junkie XL, James Holden, Darren Emerson). Regardless, pretty much all the music released with Sasha's name on it does the trick for me.
Incase you are wondering why there is a picture of a PSOne game with todays post, well Sasha wrote half the music on the soundtrack (with Charlie May, natch). Five of the six tracks were original work, but he also included the title track to his 1999 Xpander EP. A pretty genre defining tune, it was perfect for cruising round a futuristic race course at ridiculous speeds. Having sat in a dark room finding the zone last night, I can confirm that neither the game or the music has lost any of its charm in the last 6 or so years. Enjoy:
Sasha - Xpander (YSI)
Sasha - Xpander (zShare)
The rest of the EP was also excellent, from the trance tinged 'Belfunk', the dirty breaks and bass of 'Rabbitweed' and the classic ambient dub of 'Baja'. Sasha's debut LP 'Airdrawndagger' which followed in 2002 is one of my favourite albums of all time. Many dismissed it upon release, probably expecting something more squarely aimed at the dancefloor. But for me (for home listening especially) I think it all sits together perfectly. If you enjoy electronic music, I really can't recommend it enough. Both the Xpander EP and the Airdrawndagger LP are currently available at fairly reasonable prices on Amazon Marketplace.
Gavin @ MySpace
4 comments:
Ahh, "Xpander." I remember the good ol' days of progressive house and decent (enough) trance. Good call on bringing them back.
Xpander was a top tune. The last of the great prog house records.
I used to work for Pysgnosis ( if u look in the credits im there ;) i remember Sasha did a world tour and used all the visuals from Wip3out - He also got us all into Creamfields for free - Still have Xpander on 12" somewhere - Those where the days
Yeah I have WipeOut 3 and I still play it sometimes :p
Really great soundtrack, in fact, it introduced me to 'electronic music'!
(You could play that Playstation disc as a CD in a stereo/CDplayer)
All the tracks of WipeOut's soundtrack are good, especially the Sasha tracks :)
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