Digweed era performing at
Twilo In early 1993, Sasha partnered with fellow
Renaissance DJ
John Digweed. After touring together for two years, the duo became "true superstars" He continued to advance his own production work by pairing with vocalist
Maria Nayler to produce the single "Be as One", which reached No. 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. 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 game Wipeout 3. In 1999, Sasha and Digweed reunited in the studio to record their third edition in the Northern Exposure series,
Northern Exposure: Expeditions. 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
Gatecrasher. By 2003, however, electronic dance music clubs languished.
The Guardian's pop critic, Alexis Petridis, attributed the "terminal decline" of dance music to its over-commercialisation by big-name DJs, such as Sasha, and to their demands for increased fees for performances. Though dance music had been declared "dead" by many in the dance industry, Sasha continued to tour—despite the closing of many superclubs, including his resident club Twilo in May 2001. After the closing of Twilo, Sasha and Digweed embarked on their ambitious Delta Heavy Tour of the United States in 2002. Featuring veteran tour producer
Kevin Lyman and opening act
Jimmy Van M, the tour covered 31 cities and played to 85,000 people. The appearances, complete with
laser shows and video production, were more akin to rock concerts than to typical DJ events. A DVD of performance highlights, interviews, and behind-the-scenes footage was released as
Sasha & John Digweed present Delta Heavy by System Recordings. Junkie XL, along with Charlie May, also assisted Sasha on his second album of original material,
Airdrawndagger.
Airdrawndagger took several years to produce due to Sasha's desire for the album to be "as near to perfection as possible." That March, Sasha suffered a
perforated eardrum in a traffic accident, further delaying the album's production. Though the accident temporarily impaired his hearing, he drew inspiration for the album from his ordeal.
Airdrawndagger was finally released, in August 2002, to much fanfare. However, the album was "received with a lot of head scratching", according to Sasha, which he attributed to its unexpected mix of genres. The album did not feature the heavier "club sound" of Sasha's previous mix albums, bearing a closer resemblance to
ambient music.
Airdrawndagger generally received favorable reviews, though critics noted that it was not as consistent and well produced as his DJ mixes. Sasha himself described it as "a selfish, slightly self-indulgent record", though he maintains that he is "happy with it to this day". Some critics, however, called it "sleepy";
E!Online described it as being "more in league with
Yanni than
Moby". To encourage listeners' interest, Sasha held an amateur remix contest for the album's single, "
Wavy Gravy". Due to the contest's success, Sasha released all the tracks from
Airdrawndagger on his website, so that fans could download and create their own versions. After the release of
Airdrawndagger, Sasha took the young DJ James Zabiela "under his wing". He introduced Zabiela to the
CDJ1000 turntable, and signed Zabiela to the Excession talent agency. The two toured the United States together, which extended Sasha's influence to already-popular American DJs such as Kimball Collins. and decided to apply his production and DJing skills to a mix compilation that resembled a "real" album—that is, one featuring original material. He accomplished this by
sequencing the album using
Ableton Live and
Logic Pro. Sasha is pleased with the album, and plans to make a series of Fundacion albums. The next year, Sasha released 10,000 copies of a June 2006 DJ set for sale using
Instant Live, making him the first DJ to use Instant Live's licensing and publishing services. In August 2007, Sasha announced the formation of his record label, Emfire, which will be the exclusive outlet for his new material in both vinyl and digital formats. Its first release was "COMA", a collaborative track by a group of the same name, which features Sasha, Barry Jamieson, Charlie May, and Duncan Forbes. Sasha's
Invol2ver was released in September 2008, and
Invol<3r was released in March 2013.
Reuniting with Digweed Though frequent performing kept them apart for several years, Sasha and Digweed announced that they would reunite for a few Australian performances. In November 2006, the duo performed at several venues, including
Sydney,
Brisbane, and
Melbourne as well as numerous tour dates throughout 2007. In 2008, Sasha and Digweed kicked off an American tour with a performance at the
Winter Music Conference. The duo played at mainly larger venues on the weekends and smaller (750–1000 people) shows on weekdays. While fans may regard Sasha to be a DJ "hero", he is uneasy with fame; Sasha considers himself "shy at heart" and is typically uncomfortable discussing his personal life. The movie "New Emissions of Light & Sound" won the Best Original Score at the X-Dance Film Festival. The score was made up of new and previously unreleased tracks. Sasha and Digweed have re-united again in recent years. The iconic duo Sasha & John Digweed performed a Back to Back set at the Ministry of Sound in London on 24 March 2016. Shortly thereafter, the duo announced a list of tour dates for September 2016 to re-launch themselves in a series of gigs and performing Back to Back. == Musical genres ==