Sasha will tell you that nothing should be read into the fact that both the name of his concept, the Spanish word "Fundacion" and the word "Bedrock" (the dance music entity championed by John Digweed) both have the same meaning. That is, 'foundation'.
The similarity exists only in the translation. And he's dead right.
While John Digweed's Bedrock stable encompassing his London residency, mix compilations and 12" catalogue has been firmly rooted at the centre of the global dance music scene as far back as we can remember, it's really only in the past 12 months that Sasha has taken concrete steps to create his own dance music legacy; having entered the brave, not entirely new but rather, not fully explored, world of digital mixing and thrown away his decks (although not literally in the pool as he once did in the past) for the much-talked about mixing console, the Maven and revolutionary software Ableton Live.
This year he has brought his Fundacion concept to no fewer than three cities, New York, LA and Ibiza with a fourth to follow and released the first compilation, fundacionNYC, in what looks like being another long-running new mix series. Along the way it would seem there has also been a shift in Sasha's musical direction and the odd battle with technology that is still far from perfect.
When asked what a fundacionIBIZA CD might sound like, Sasha says,
"Well things have moved on so I think it’ll be less proggy, more funky, a bit more electroey; stuff that probably reflects what gets played on the terrace. Housier, funkier".
Next weekend Sasha returns to London for the South West Four festival where, in addition to his solo DJ set at Clapham Common, he will join John Digweed at the Brixton Academy for a rare back-to-back London performance.
With one week to go before his SW4 appearance we had a chat with Sasha to discuss his Fundacion residency in Ibiza, the possibility of a follow-up CD to his acclaimed GU Ibiza, his latest residency, the merits of old-fashioned mixing and those occasional computer crashes. |
