Customer Reviews

Global Underground 013: Ibiza

5 star:		(128)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you own anything by Sasha, then you must by this. It's better than the San Francisco CD. There are so many stand-out tracks like BT's "Mercury and Solace", "Dreamstate" by Acquilla, and Cass and Slide's "Perception" which are prime examples of the best in deep, melodic trance. There is a style of House on here that is so trippy and hard to find anywhere else than in Sasha and Digweed's sets. Much like the SF CD, the first disc is more Housey and the second being faster and Trancier. Both discs will equally send you off on a voyage much like his live sets. This set is true to the Ibiza style just like SF was true to how Sasha plays over there. All the mixes are perfect and the programing is well done. I've had the import copy for months now and it still gets almost daily play. There are a few songs that I just can't get out of my head and they put a smile on my face everytime I play this. If you've never heard Sasha, then this disc will definitely get you hooked on his style. This is the finest in Dance music, hands down!

This 2 CD set is truely excellent.

Contrary to some of the other reviews, I think CD1 is the better of the two. CD1 is sort of 'dark', but its on this disc that Sasha really takes his time building a tremendous groove that sort of just explodes out at you around track 5 or 6. It did take me a few listens of CD1, through which point I thought it was sort of plain, before I caught on and the absolute epic quality of what I was hearing hit me.

CD2 is also fantastic, but in a more obvious kind of way - not nearly as dark, it contains several big time songs, including two favorites "Mercury and Solace" by BT with the wonderful vocals of Jan Johnston, and Sasha's own Xpander. The mixing is seemless, as usual for Sasha - I think its particularly effective as he weaves into and then out of Mercury and Solace.

In the end, I'm not sure if this is the greatest trance CD I've ever heard (the entire Northern Exposure and Global Underground series are all very, very good) but if its not its certainly darned close, and is a very worthwhile purchase.

How do they choose the "spotlight review" again? Because the one up there right now is ridiculous... This album definately does not need another review, but I feel someone needs to stand up for it right now. Let's analyze his criticisms:

1. "The tracks are pretty weak..."

No, not really. At all: tracks 1-3 are the perfect "space-terrace" tracks. Humate is simply awesome, and Deep Progress is the most chill late 90's terrace/opener track ever. CD1 is the ultimate opener. Sander Kleinenberg's My Lexicon is definative of this entire era for progressive house. When I think back to that late 90's sound/2000, My Lexicon definately springs to mind..... CD2: Definately not chill. This is deep: deep progressive: deep progressive house. Is Fibonacci Sequence the shiznit? Yes it is. POB-Fly itches its way into your brain, and the Mercury and Solace mix which Sasha strings out over 3 tracks rocks like a mother-f***er. And as if having Bedrock's Heaven Scent wasn't "exciting" enough, Sasha puts in his very own Xpander. If you have not heard this track, buy the album just so you can own a copy of it. It's a powerful electronic, melodious track and, like the entire cd, works up a bass-infected trance that doesn't leave you until the disc stops spinning.

2. "many boring moments..." ???

Did your head-phone plug fall out of the cd player? dude. Wake yourself up and start the disc over. Clearly the trance was so deep you passed out and don't remember a thing.

3. Not fluid?

If "The Man Like"'s mixing and track selection is not fluid, please let the rest of us know what you listen to, lol.

BOTTOM LINE- THIS CD DEFINES ITS GENRE. IT DEFINES ELECTRONIC MUSIC AND WITHOUT THE SOUND SASHA (ALONG WITH DIGWEED, AND NICK WARREN) WAS PUTTING OUT 5-8 YEARS AGO, WE WOULDN'T BE WHERE WE ARE TODAY. BUY THIS ALBUM.

It’s a curious thing about the music genre of electronica: how quickly that which sounds new and fresh becomes old and stale and virtually unlistenable. Every month two dozen DJ compilations are released onto the market, each with the latest ‘big tracks’ of a particular sub-genre—-in essence, a Polaroid snapshot of a particular moment in the club circuit that will almost certainly sound dated in three months time. And the audience for this type of music is voracious, chopping up and spitting out these cookie-cutter comps while lusting after the next to-be-released stress/release panacea. I often wonder if this is a deliberate mechanism on the part of producers and DJ’s: orchestrating substandard albums so as to keep their loyal audience ready and waiting to shell out for their latest tour de force of banging anthems and/or plodding build-up tracks.

That said, there are a few DJ mixes that transcend this pattern of (to quote Chris Rock) “here today, gone today” entertainment. The test is an easy one: listen to an album two-three years after its release, and see if you can endure the entire project without touching the skip button or taking the CD out altogether. Alexander Coe (ne “Sasha”)’s second Global Underground offering, set in the baleric paradise of Ibiza, fits this standard with ease; an unsurprising feat, really, considering Sasha is one half of the team that produced the classic trance/progressive of the _Northern Exposure_ series. A retrospective listen actually improves this album, for the buzz of the big tunes has long faded and what we are left is a smooth, classy journey of impeccable build and timing. GU: 013 Ibiza is the portrait of an artist at his peak: two discs of aural beauty.

Sasha begins disc One with a pleasant glide through ‘Deep Progress’ and ‘The Deep Edge,’ songs that conjure images of late-afternoon sun and sweat and surf, the white sand and club atmospherics of one of the more expensive resorts on earth. The intro done and the intention stated, Ibiza gets deeper at this point, for the next three tracks compose a slow build of rhythm and subtle synths that explodes upon the dropping of the needle on ‘My Lexicon:’ a cascade of cheer and chill. But a sinister bass soon penetrates the tranquility, and the Breeder remix of ‘Nothing Left’ sets the mood for the second half of the disc: serious house and somewhat dark trance. The second peak comes at the astonishing meld of ‘Stage One’ and ‘Sacred’, one of the most incredible programming feats I’ve heard yet. ‘Amber’ winds us down in epic territory, providing a satisfying conclusion while forewarning the listener of what is still to come.

Disc Two begins with a man muttering about algorithms, an appropriate hint considering the sheer genius of the programming to follow. Disc Two is built around Sasha’s own ‘Xpander’, the first half building up to it, the second half maintaining the mood until the clash n’ crash of ‘Heaven Scent.’ Each song has its own identity, however; each are unique and each contribute to making this disc more than the sum of its parts. Notable mixing moments: the tweaked ambience of ‘Zoe’ into ‘Perception,’ peaking the epic ‘One’ with ‘Mercury and Solace,’ and the introduction of ‘Heaven Scent’ after the tribal dammerung of ‘Future in Computer Hell.’

In conclusion, this is among Sasha’s finest work to date, a shining jewel among the dirt and drudge of most progressive comps. Essential for both electronica purist and dabbler.

Sasha's Ibiza mix might as well be renamed to "The Greatest (and most timeless) Late 90's Progressive House/Trance Tunes (which doesn't mean anthemic cheese) mixed by Jesus and arranged by God". Only kidding ... but seriously, you'll be hard pressed to find a better DJ mix. This is easily Sasha's best mix CD to date, the best Global Underground compilation to date, and would probably rank in the top 10 DJ mixes of all time.

The most important element of a DJ mix is track selection (obviously). Sasha went all out with this mix selecting classic tunes and remixes from the biggest producers of the era (and some, of all time). The production and remix prowess of Sander Kleinenberg, Orbital, Breeder, Humate, Quivver (as Space Manoeuvres), BT, Cass & Slide, Pob, Evolution (as Bluefish), Bedrock, and Sasha himself cannot be denied. There is a drawback: all of these anthems might give the mix a slightly sterile feel. I say might because, depending on how long you've been listening to electronic music, you'll probably have heard a least a couple of these tunes before. Other Sasha mixes tend to have a slightly more exclusive track listing, with a greater variety of rare underground (for lack of a better term) tunes thrown in. So, your listening experience will vary.

Tracks alone, of course, don't make a DJ mix album. The DJs ability to arrange and mix the songs into a cohesive statement or story, is what makes or break the album. And no one does this better than Sasha. Technically superior DJs exist (James Zabiela), but no one has the epic, emotional, human element in their DJ sets quite like Sasha does. The mixing on this album is superb, and like any great mix album does, it elevates the quality of the tracks to another level. Listen to the transition from Jimpy's "Talkin" to Pariah's fantastic remix of Space Manoeuvres "Stage One", and then to Sander Kleinenberg's "Sacred". Absolutely brilliant.

Lastly, comparisons to Sasha's live DJ sets aren't really fair. A DJ set on CD, and a DJ set live are two completely different formats for obvious reasons, and therefore, must be approached differently in both recording, and listening. To sum things up, this is the finest solo mix album Sasha has ever released, and six years later, it still stands head and shoulders above the sea of compilations released since.

The Global Underground series started back in `97 I think and it played a very important role in elevating the quality of trance music. Before that, we were seeing some cheesy trance being mixed into CD`s and sold and on the other hand, some big tracks being the only forte of some CD`s. But GU, hiring the best DJ`s in the world, changed that trend somewhat. All the GU CD`s have been exceptional, with my personal favourite having been NY ... till now. GU 013 surpasses the already high quality standards of any GU cd upto date and sets a new high, and with it Sasha (always the best) comepels the others to raise their standards to his. If ever there was a CD from Global Underground that you had to buy ... it is this. I should know .. I have all of them.

Keep you reciept! ...mount it on the wall because its the single one thing that you ever bought thats priceless now. Sasha and Digger and synonomous when it comes to their style of spinning and I used to prefer Digger's (more thumpy) type of trance but believe me, this sets Sasha way over the ranks. I am not a religious man, but now i pray to Sasha each night before I go to bed, hoping he will do it again as flawless as this GU set. I have owned this set for quite a while now and this is the single best set I have ever bought out of all the Northern Exposure, Global Underground, and Sasha and Digweed sets. Heres a few reasons why: 1)Sasha is God. 2)All hail sasha 3)Sasha is God. 4)CD 1 should be listened to first because it is as everyone says, a little slower but equally as elaborate. But don't listen to it once because it takes some time to really love it. Don't pop in the second CD until you love the first, not because its not good, just the contrary, its the best. Fibbanocci is educational not in calculus but in setting the mood. Tracks 1-4 are all great and wonderful(I love them) but because they set you up so well for track 5-Sasha's XPANDER. This song will drive you to the single most happiest place in the universe, Sasha's playground. Track 6 is the best track in the set for being the worst. It brings you down so hard from the greatest of XPANDER, that you hate it so much but that is why you will soon love it. You think that Sasha is setting you up for a slower, more boring pace after XPANDER but BOOOOOOMMMM, Mercury and Solace by BT pumps it straight into high gear again so you start jumping again. The rest of the CD is just as good as the first half. AcQuilla sounds just like Sarah McLaughlin when she whispers "REACH, REACH" and when the music in this 8th track comes to almost silence and she says "REACH" one last time, Sahsa "reaches into his bag of tricks" and hits you with a devistating blow of hard, hopping, melodic beats that send your hands bumping to the bass. This is a work of art the way he makes 10 tracks sound like one beautifully mastered frenzy. It gets daily play to this day and when i go to Twilo next time, I'm gonna hold up a sign in front of the DJ booth that says "XPAND ME, SEND ME TO IBIZA"...you have to buy this...OR you will never hear the music of God.

As a DJ who no longer plays 2000-era Sasha&Digweed progressive house, I have little trouble calling this mix CD timeless. Definitely a cut above all the other GU mixes, it unfortunately today can get lost among the legions of countless other mix CDs by international DJs. It dates back to 1999, when the whole prog-house-UK meets New York & Twilo blend of dance music was seriously being touted as the current chic, and the mix clearly and impeccably represents not only that period of time, but the elite, crowd-moving, emotional yet driving style of that (sadly) bygone musical era.
Today, after listening to tons of these CDs, and having DJed tons of places, this is one of my all time favorites, just because it is so archetypal of that period in dance music, and also because it is just masterfully created. The music chosen for the mix will not get old, simply because it is good, and more importantly, laced together in a gorgeously presented sequence that, when experienced, will leave you fumbling for a way to describe the way you feel.

In this mix, you will find subtle, spacy craftiness of sequentially key-matched tracks (i.e CD 2--Bluefish to BT's Mercury and Solace), intense and seriously grooving rhythms that will literally make your body move without you realizing it, and beautiful, sexy, emotional passages that will induce daydreams (i.e. Space Manoeuvres Stage One on CD1, or Cass & Slide's Perception on CD2). The first CD is a dreamy and relaxed, working up to a groove towards the end; the second CD is more driving, more epic, and danceable. The vibe of the album as a whole is very mental, psychologically engaging and nostalgic, and the flow of the album is extremely irresistible. You will find your ears and mind completely absorbed, and perhaps whisked off to some distant Ibizan discotheque in the summer of 2000...

A word addressing the "quality" of the mix. This mix--along with most of the GU series and almost all mass-produced mix CDs on the market today-- was all done on a computer. There is an element of track selection that does go into the process; the DJ chooses the insertion points as to where to start the mix and also uses samplers + effects to enhance the mix (as Sasha does in this mix in several points). But, this is not a live-mixed album. The tracks are ripped to digital format, beatmatched & aligned and manipulated before being mixed down. So, don't think he did all of that live (sorry to burst any budding DJs' bubble out there that think that is what people sound like live...I felt that way for a long time till I discovered the truth!!)

But...IF YOU ARE INTO progressive house, you will undoubtedly have heard of this album, and if you have never heard of it before, you will surely greatly appreciate it. It is more than a piece of music or a classic mix reflective of a certain era in one's life--it is a true experience that needs to be treated as such.

(then)
This was the very first "Trance" album that I ever bought. Having heard Sasha's Xpander on the soundtrack for my Wipeout 3 CD, I had to find it. I had never heard this type of music before, and was really stabbing in the dark when I went to look for it. Immediately, this was the first album that came up that had Sasha's name on it, and Xpander in it. I bought it. (This was almost two years ago mind you) I popped it in, skipped to Xpander, and was immediately disappointed. I skipped through each track, trying to find the melodies, and came up empty handed. There was no melody like Xpander, nothing interesting, I couldn't believe I'd let myself waste 20 dollars. I get the feeling that many people quit after this stage, hence the bad reviews.

(now)
WHAT HAPPENED?!?
Since I bought this album, I have bought MANY trance albums and DJ sets, and have really fine tuned my tastes. It was over this time that I came to realize where the true genius of this music is. It's not in a catchy melody, but it's in the excitement that comes from noticing that even though on the outside, it may seem repetitive, that there are tiny things changing CONSTANTLY, these subtle changes make trance and house beautiful. I also found that Sasha is brilliant. You cannot listen to his music track by track. If you do, you will find it boring, and that no track will be a club hit. But if you listen to the WHOLE mix with no stops, each track fits it's space perfectly, and the mood is wonderful. For example, I used to not like track 4 on disc 1, but loved track 5 (Kleinenberg's My Lexicon). Now, I find that track 4 is necessary to keep the mood, without getting too cheesy to ruin the effect of the set.

It's beautiful. I encourage you all to pop this in, put on your best headphones, and listen the whole way through with the lights off. You will definitely go into a trance and you can't imagine the feeling that you will get when the first disc comes to a close with Natious-Amber. It's euphoric. This set has withstood the test of time, getting better and more brilliant each time I hear it. You will catch yourself skipping back to hear how he mixes between tracks, it is something to be heard to be believed.

Highly recommended, extremely futuristic.

You've just got to hand it to him. Rarely does he put a foot wrong, these mixes proves that he deserves his place at the high end of the DJ premier league.

Disk 1 starts kinda' mellow, building track by track towards a pulsating climax, through great cut's like Breeder's remix of Orbital's 'Nothing Left'. Slip disk 2 on and suddenly the direction takes a 90-degree turn towards breakbeat before seamlessly turning back towards some great progressive melodies. Tracks such as BT's 'Mercury & Solace' evoke real emotive responces as you can't help but be swept along on cutting-edge journey through tomorrow's dance music.

Usually I wouldn't touch any Ibiza compelation with a barge pole, but I've come to respect Sasha's excellent mixing over the years. Mixes such as this manage to effortlessly blow away the stench of cheese in what has unfortunatly become a somewhat comercially-driven genre of late.

If you love his & John Digweed's work on the 'Northern Exposure' CD's, then this is an essential buy.