page_title: Sasha (DJ)
section_title: Digweed era
hierarchical_section_title: Sasha (DJ) / Career / Digweed era
caption_attribution_description: English: Sasha &amp; John Digweed in the old DJ booth.
context_page_description: Alexander Paul Coe, known mononymously 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 dance 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.
context_section_description: 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 #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 games Wipeout 3 and Gran Turismo. 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, [Communicate] 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 Gat
caption: Sasha & John Digweed performing at Twilo
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