Customer Reviews

Communicate

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(40)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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+

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.

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.

The latest release from this dynamic duo of trance, effortlessly communicates and connects with their loyal fan base and new ones that are sure to be converted with this 2-disc collaboration. Following their hugely successful individual endeavors, like Bedrock for Digweed, and GU-Ibiza for Sasha, is by no means an easy feat, but this disc sure delivers. Languid and exceptional mixing segues each song into the next without hitches for that full-throttle club euphoria that pervades the whole CD. Eric Clapton and Trance? Who would have thought about it, but there it is, a stereo dub of Get Lost, getting the royal makeover, followed immediately by an equally engaging track called Barbarella. The highlight of disc one is Bedrock's Voices, a trippy white hot number that pulsates and shimmers, and engulfs you in its basic hook. The most commercial track, Luzon's The Baguio Track, concludes this magical odyssey, and that's just disc-one! Disc two follows suit, with strong tracks like ECI-PS, WAAH!, and the always dependable Chemical Brothers, with Enjoyed. Excellent effort from a team that never fails to deliver!

So often, DJs flood the music scene by redoing whats been done and serving up mixes that, after listening, seem just like the next DJ's mix. The mixes only become recognisable for their track selections, and often the talent that will make or break a mix comes more from the artist who created the track than the DJ's musical selection and mixing.

Sasha and John Digweed have put together an amazing album with 'Communicate', but it has been enevitably overlooked. The market is filled with dance floor albums to get you moving, but anyone looking for this in 'Communicate' is not going to find it.

The feel of 'Communicate' is very specific, and for most, getting the full effect of the album will take an aquired taste. It is definately an album to create a mood. Not many mixes will pull me in like this album. Listening to this album from a distance diminishes the feel of the music, but those who have the ear for it will find an amazing work of art in the music. Dark undertones with original sounds interplaying create a mood of slow and steady changes throughout the larger, epic sweeps of the entire mix. The second disc brings the entire set to a superb end as the last tracks build to one of the most intense finales I have heard. As the disc draws to a close, it sends the listener into an aural overdrive, peaking several times, laying on the pressure faster than the listener is expecting and then taking it away just as you are craving more and coming back during the lingering energy created from the previous build.

The album puts together an amazing set. The deep trance journey is not for those who lack patience or are looking for the star track that will do it for them. Rather it takes tracks individual in their creation and melds them together with perfection. Musically, the songs are all amazing. The mixes never sound like there is too much or too little going on. Sounds intermingle, setting in before disappearing only to emerge later in the mix. None of the songs fall into a boring '4-measure-and-add-another-sound-on-top' routine.

The mixing of songs is flawless, as said before. The mood of the album is persistant throughout the song changes, and the individual tracks become one composition, never feeling 'seperate songs', but forming to each other and giving the album a feeling of being complete.

I give this album 5 stars. I would reserve my reccomendation of this album for those who can appriciate it. Like fine art, it takes a certain listener to fully gain the magic of 'Communicate'. Mostly, it is not an album for inexperienced listeners or those with preconceptions of what trance is supposed to be like. The moods created with this album are so incredibly different than any mainstream styles of mixing, and even differ from the styles of previous Sahsa and Digweed works. It represents a very mature mix that, although personal preferences for it will vary greatly, remains a superior showcase of mixing and craftsmanship by its creators.

I must say that Sasha and Digweed's mixed cds are by far the best cd's that I own. I have enjoyed their Northern Exposure and Global Underground releases, but Communicate is a little different from those.

Norhtern Exposure focuses more on delicate sounds and textures with produces a great aural feeling for the listener.

Their GU mixes are reflective of their current styles. The GU mixes have more energy but doesn't quite get "gritty."

Gritty...which is the key word for "Communicate". I listened to this cd and I said to myself "man, it's got dirty bass no fruity vocals and sinister sounds. It sounds like them live...hell yeah!"

Sasha and digweed got tougher for this compilation.

It's not exactly what you expext but nonetheless its another side to these 2 freakishly talented individuals. Just remember to keep in mind that this is NOT Northern Exposure IV and I promise you will have a better time understanding and enjoying this album.

I hope they expand on this series and continue to make mixes that have a "raw" sound to them.

I've listened to a lot of Sasha and Diggers stuff both solo and together and I'm afraid this album just doesn't cut it. It just sounds like the same old thing like they're just going through the paces. I can't believe they included the Chemical Brothers on this. Even though it's hardly the same mix as on their album I don't really buy trance albums to hear songs that were radio play a year ago.

Sorry but this album will get relegated to "backgound music" for me. If you want better try Sasha's San Francisco or Ibiza GU albums or John Digweed in Hong Kong.

Simply not the cutting edge stuff I would have expected from top "world class" DJ's. It's like Nick Warren coming to Auckland to play Underworld tracks (got the album a year ago already thanks Nick).

I have to admit side 1's got some nice tracks but on the whole it falls flat.

i spent enough money on this damn cd, so I feel i have the right to give it it's just review. Simply put, I feel that this cd moves at an incredibly slow, sometimes painful pace. But that's to be expected from this ever-popular duo. Yes these two are so mainstream now a lot of "fans" label them popular and think there the best by far, hands down. But my flava lies with energetic trance that closes your eyes and takes you to a better place. An overall good cd, but perhaps alcohol could make it better...yes?

anytime that messrs. sasha and digweed release an album, you know its not going to be standard fare. even those pretty well acquainted with these massive international djs would be hard pressed to know what direction their disc is going to take until we wrestle it out of the shrinkwrap. but from the tracklisting alone, its easy to tell this is no different.

'expeditions' may have been a bit more accessible and 'xpander' and 'bedrock' may have showcased THOSE TUNES ('xpander' and 'heaven scent', respectively), but 'communicate' shows s&d's progression onwards, upwards, and into a sonic realm aching to be discovered.

disc one is sasha's and its a messy, surreal romp thru one of his prog-house sets aimed straight for the serious clubber. from david morales' dub rework of an eric clapton track (wa-hey!, right?) thru to the first occurrence on the disc of bedrock's soon-to-be-massive 'voices' on to s&d faves slacker, this disc is a no-holds-barred, leave the glowsticks at home trek into 3am and beyond progressive deep house. the closest we come to a breakdown of major chords is sven vath's churning, cascading 'barbarella.' this disc does not disappoint, but it isn't for the trance nation massive.

the same hold's for diggers' foray into housier elements. akin to his bedrock and hong kong cds, this disc is not an easy, summer-fare kinda trip. like sasha, digweed holds the listener to much more by challenging us with killer beats not found near an atb or dutch trancemeister enclave. the resurgence of a new 'voices' remix is welcome, showcasing what makes the sasha and digweed experience so fierce; it allows us to see two masters at work---both working together and building off the other. schiller's 'ruhe' is an excellent track, much like 'west on 27th' on sasha's disc; both tracks surge and take you somewhere slightly seedy, totally different, but always fun. the jimmy van m and POB tracks (both friends of s&d---POB fellow producers and Van M, fellow twilo dj) are also fantastic journeys into the digweed set aesthetic.

all in all, not the poptastic tranceathon most may want for their beat packed summer, but one that is no worse for the wear because of that. if you want to really go places this summer, make 'communicate' your soundtrack. cheers.

If you're expeciting something as good as Expeditions, beware. Although both discs are good, there are better things out there to listen to.Sasha in Ibiza (Global Underground) is far better as well. I guess it is nice to hear some new songs, but Communicate seems uneventful. It wouldn't dissuade me from buying their future cd's though. Their style seemingly changes every couple of months/ releases, and they fluctuate between amazing and boring.