Smallman1
Mategreen 26 Apr 2020
Edited 8 months ago
GU:013 is the one, as far as the late ’90s/early ’00s progressive house/trance zeitgest is concerned. From the setting in the world’s most famous party destination to the roster of era-defining anthems, this is the essential set text of the whole genre. And let’s not forget the moody face on the cover. Sasha: the original “DJ pin-up” and probably the most in-demand DJ in the world come Anno Domini 1999.
But does it live up to its reputation? For this reviewer, it’s a game of two halves. CD1 is probably the single most perfect progressive set ever laid to compact disc. Late ‘90s progressive house often struggles in the 75 minute constraints of the mix CD. The tunes are just too long, too incremental in their unfurling to really pick up momentum before the CD has already come to an end. Not here. CD1 is paced to absolute perfection. It moves through the various facets of Sasha’s sound - deep, hypnotic house, rhythmic progressive builders, summery trance breakdowns, tribal NYC grooves and big emotive climaxes - without missing a beat. It has the massive classics like My Lexicon and Stage One, but also the crate-digger obscurities that you wouldn’t find many other DJs in possession of.
Most importantly it’s mixed to perfection. It still surprises me how many people still seem to think this was a traditional vinyl mix, because there’s an enormous amount of post-production at work here. If you know the original versions of these records you can easily hear how Sasha and his engineer broke them down into individual samples which they then layered into the mix so that elements of each tune meld endlessly into the next one, sometimes reoccurring minutes after the transition has supposedly finished. Elsewhere, tunes are edited and reconstructed and filters and additional FX loop over tracks to add yet more subliminal ear candy to the mix. It’s that extra attention to detail that really makes this a classic. At a time when digitally mixed CDs were becoming commonplace on the market (not least in the GU series) Sasha took the practise to another level. No matter how many times I listen to GU:013 I can always hear something new, some extra bit of mixing artistry I’d never consciously processed before.
CD2, as has been noted elsewhere, is all about the hits. 10 tunes in 75 minutes, three of those running in at almost ten minutes a pop. If CD1 is all about pacing and perfectly contoured energy, CD2 really is about gluing together the biggest records in Sasha’s box and letting the music do the talking. It’s still a blast to listen to, but in places it feels disjointed and lacking in the hypnotic flow you would expect from this style of music. As a result I struggle somewhat, and I find myself putting this disc on less often than the first.
In the age-old debate about which is the superior Sasha effort for this label - San Francisco or Ibiza - I find myself torn. San Fran is more consistently excellent across both discs, but neither one of them is as perfect as CD1 here. For 75 minutes or so you’re hearing The Man Like, and indeed the whole genre, as good as he would ever sound. And that’s no small praise.
