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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Yes, you should get this, July 24, 2000
This review is from: Communicate (Audio CD)
90% of you reading this review will buy Communicate anyway, and the remaining 10% should. Having said that, what will you be getting? What Sasha and John Digweed are trying to
"Communicate" is an interest in deeper tunes since their last
collaboration. This is no surprise to those who've picked up their
solo efforts recently, but reflects a change from past Northern
Exposure releases. However, this collection sees the duo shying away
from the darker tunes of recent sets for more varied, user-friendly
tunes. For fans preferring the murky progressive house of, say,
Digweed's Global Underground: Hong Kong, fear not, this 2-cd album
still relies predominately on deep, lively basslines and hard
percussion. Disc one is the lesser of the two, though it starts
well with "Like a Bitch," a sultry house number, caressing your
ear with whispers and a bass groove. Proving that a mix can be
everything, you'll check your CD cover twice to confirm that, yes, the
siren fueled menacer you're hearing next is apparently Eric
Clapton. Sven Vath and Deep Dish glide through "Barbarella" and
in to this year's big DJ hit "Roaches," a proclamation of
underground attitude. Problem: setting aside the fact that it's not a
very interesting tune, it's hard to claim being "underground"
when you are some of the top DJ's in the world and sell hundreds of
thousands of copies. A Bedrock track resumes the journey, Slacker's
"Fusion" then brightening the ambience with the help of light,
simple, breakdowns. "Saints and Sinners" is instantly catchy,
and leads to an actual fun track (!) by the duo, Trisco's
"Musak," which certainly is not. "West on 27th," a
tribal/rave number, actually has a brief, clear blippy line through
it, a tone listeners haven't heard from Sasha & Digweed in about
two years. Having thrown you that bone, we're back to the darker stuff
once more, with mandatory Breeder- surprisingly brief- before ending
on a solid but not improved reconstruction of the stellar "The
Baguio Track." The second disc gets the ball rolling smoothly
with the screeching noise and tinkling keys of "Narcotic" and
the bass rhythms of "The Blue Hour." After the harsh beats of
"Voices," the Orb make an appearance, though "Voices"
weaves through most of their track. Jimmy Van M, pal and opening act
for S&D, contributes the excellent "ECL-PS" one of the
standouts of the set. "Waah!" and "Force 51" are good
rumblers with more pronounced darker melodies than you've heard so
far. "Ruhe" has several drops to silence and missteps into
sci-fi score territory. "Put Your Earphones On" reveals nothing
you can't hear through speakers, but it's a winner. It ends with the
Chemical Brothers B-side "Enjoyed." What you end up getting is
a compilation deeper but more melodic than their more recent
efforts. Not a great album, but certainly containing great tracks and
good interludes, S&D fans - trance fans in general - will be
pleased. B+
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
S&D at the peak of their prowess, January 21, 2004
This review is from: Communicate (Audio CD)
Before this mix was released, the sound of the underground was still progressing towards the deeper, darker, moodier direction we associate with it today. Mix CDs on the market didn't reflect this move all that well - until listeners were given a preview into the sound of the new millenium by 2 back-to-back classics - GU 013: Sasha in Ibiza & GU 014: Digweed in Hong Kong. These CDs did more to establish the new order of international DJ culture than anything else, and gave us a glimpse of what was to come. Then, the same 2 guys gave us Communicate. More than any other album I know (I've never been able to get my hands on their legendary Renaissance set), Communicate defines what Sasha & Digweed represent in terms of soundscapes. It showcases 2 completely different yet perfectly complementary DJ styles, and IMHO, catches both of them at the peak of their abilities. Sasha simply condenses what he did with GU 013, adding a grittier texture to the spacey sound that is his trademark. Digweed... well, suffice to say that if all other works by John Digweed were lost in a fire, and I could choose 1 mix for preservation, I would pick this one in a heartbeat. Disc 1 contains quite a few tracks that were familiar in the day - "West on 27th", "Roaches", "The Baguio Track"... all recognizable as some of the biggest tunes of that year. The beauty of this disc is in its programming & arrangement - the beautiful DD remix of Sven Vath's "Barbarella" is a ready example of what track placement can do to augment the overall mood of a CD. The ambient, spacey aural vibe of Sasha's sets is present, but is mixed in equal parts with gritty, grinding bass synths & straight, hard beats. The resulting cocktail is what happens when the man decides to tear up a dancefloor - groove oriented sound retaining signature style. Disc 2 takes things to an altogether different plane. The brilliance of this mix lies in the fact that - while being the single darkest, moodiest, eeriest and most subterranean mix ever crafted by Digweed - it unearths and showcases such absolute purity of sound that 90% of these tracks sound cutting-edge even today (remember, this is a 2000 mix). "Narkotik" establishes the hypnotic vibe of this mix at the very beginning, "King of Spin" incorporates a wobbling, echoing synthline sounding like its coming straight at you inside a closed, pitch-black tunnel, "Voices" highlights what careful sampling can do to a track... each track contains something to rave about. The highlight of the disc for me was the stupendous mix into JVM's "ECI-PS" - 3 1/2 minutes?!?!?! That is the best single track-into-track mix I've ever heard, period. The mood is carried on seamlessly by another awe-inspiring mix into POB's "Waah!", and by the time the last, quivering strings of "Enjoyed" fade away into the silence, you're left completely speechless. This is NOT a CD you'll find yourself dancing to too much - you'll be too busy just letting the sound play around with your head while shutting yourself off from the rest of the world. Today, I wouldn't consider Sasha & Digweed the 2 best DJs in the world. Their latest efforts, while good, aren't what I would call masterpieces. Maybe the sound has moved on, past what they represent - I don't know. But if you want to hear what they sounded like as partners in sonic crime in their hey-day... if you want to - 20 years on - look at a CD and know that it represents the absolute BEST of what was playing when it was released, then this is the one. Buy it, make a copy every year so that you have a mint-condition copy at any time. This album is a genuine, A+ work of art. 4 1/2 stars for Sasha. 5 for Digweed. Overall Verdict - 5 stars.
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14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A top compilation of deep trance sounds, June 23, 2000
This review is from: Communicate (Audio CD)
I've been looking forward to this one for awhile, even though it hasn't been long since both Sasha and Digweed released their most recent Global Underground collections and Digweed put out his Bedrock set. As usual, these two superstars create a seamless, hypnotic mix which mesmerizes with its atmosphere and seismic rhythms, building from track to track. While the duo avoid the fun, cheesy trance anthems prevalent on so many other collections, this set nevers gets dull or lifeless. There are tracks here from usual suspects like Breeder (the magnificent soundtrack styled "Tyrantanic" making its second appearance on a Sasha/Digweed compilation, this time mixed by Slacker), POB, Van M, and Slacker themselves, plus a few superstars like The Orb, Chemical Bros, and Sven Vath. And of course, a bunch of finds from artists I've never heard of like Trisco and Jaimy and Kenny D (a duo whose name sounds to me like the two least popular members of some hypothetical boy band). Plus, there's an unlikely but effective appearance from a drastically remixed Eric Clapton. Highlights include two mixes of "Voices," the latest single from Digweed and Nick Muir's Bedrock project, a dreamlike track from P.F.N. called "Put Your Earphones On" with beautiful keyboard sounds and a wailing female vocal that'll make you want to do just what its title says, and the tough, funky Peace Division remix of Trancesetters' "Roaches." This is a quality set, very much worth adding to your collection.
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