Search - Sasha :: Global Underground 013: Ibiza

Perfection

Pablo Hernandez II | Perth, Western Australia | 07/07/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Quite simply.. Disc 1 is timeless perfection. Best absorbed on a beach, headphones on, when its WAY too hot...



Disc 2 is a bit more cheesy, but best sums up the dance music trends at the time..



ENJOY.



NB: don't bother with other mixes if you didn't enjoy this.. its the best DJ in the world, at the top of his game, during the peak of the electronic music scene, at the dance music capital of the world.



MAGIC!"

Timeless

YJM | Somewhere In The South | 06/13/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Well my musical tastes are all over the place, one minute I'm listening to Megadeth, the next I'm listening to Pat Metheny, then I'm on to some Brahms piano concertos, then maybe some early Journey or Rush, and then finally I'll cap it off with Chris Fortier (one of my favorite DJ's). You see to me, good music is good music and it doesn't matter the genre. When people come over and look at my CD collection (currently about a 1,000 CD's and counting) they really can't believe the mix of artists I have in my collection. I pride myself on having the most diverse selection of music of anyone I've ever met.



Anyway, enough about me, but I wanted you to know where I'm coming from when I rate this CD. I have a bunch of Global Underground sets, for a while there I was collecting them. Sadly, electronic music seems to have a very short shelf life. What sounded hip, new, and exciting a year ago, now sounds dated and played out. It takes a very rare DJ, and a very exceptional track selection to create a set that doesn't have this effect. Sasha has created that rare, timeless progressive trance set with Ibiza. In my opinion it is the pinnacle of the Global Underground series.



Disc one will take you on a beautiful journey, while disc two takes you into the club. It really depends on my mood which CD I listen to on any given day. I will say CD one has worn better with age and if someone stuck a gun to my head and said "pick a CD," CD one would be it without a doubt. CD one is the CD you want to listen to at home with headphones and the candles lit with some incense burning, while CD two is what you want to listen to in the car or in the gym.



In short, this set will stand as one of the best in all electronic music and is absolutely essential to anyone with the slightest interest in this style of music. Especially if you love progressive house as much as I do."

This is true PROGRESSIVE HOUSE

K. Shin | 04/03/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Back in the late 90s, right before the explosion of mp3s, I was desperately trying to find "THE" dance music genre. I spent many hours at Tower Records (RIP) listening stations, blowing $20-40 at a time to take a chance on dance CDs, many of them that turned out to be duds even when I had skimmed through at the listening station. But in the process, I did land on some that I personally consider as gold: ICU Kimball Collins and Euphoria (2CD) mixed by PF Project. That's it! These are the types of dance music I like. These are unlike what I hear on the radio and the cheesy dance tracks that DJs play at the local clubs. What do you call these and where do I get more of them??? Then the mp3s swept the world and I came across tracks from Astral Projection and similar artists. That's it. Trance! I like trance! I can't believe these types of music have been out so long and I'm not only beginning to discover them! Keep in mind, I'm in an area of the US where hip hop rules and practically everyone refers to dance tracks as "techno". This is before I knew about raves and going clubbing b/c a certain DJ was in town.



Then at Tower Records one day during the summer of 2000, I see this rather attractively designed CD cover: Global Underground 013 Ibiza. Keep in mind, most dance/trance CDs from then had this cheap look, produced by small recording studios for a small demographic. Not Global Underground. It had this expensive, professional look. I looked at the back of the CD and it had miniture pics of club scenes and the crowd. WOW!!! This is cool. Plus, it's all the way up to 13th in the series so it can't be bad. So I bought it (yes, the longbox version) and popped it in the car CD player...



Hmmmm.... disappointment. The tracks seemed slower than what I'm used to and seemed lethargic. It's almost as if I wanted to slap the DJ and make him speed up the tracks. I gave both CDs a full listen and thought, well, that's another $30 wasted... but since I did spend the money, I might as well listen to it some more... then one afternoon as I was driving, a mystic synthesizer passage from one of the tracks really captured me. And I thought, "wow, that part was actually pretty good". And I listened to the CD more and more. That track was none other than Xpander. From then, I think I listened these two CDs more than anything else. It just kept getting better and better with each listen. I didn't like the tracks at first b/c of it's slower tempo (me being a trance fan then), but I soon realized that the tracks are incredibly well put together, blended in perfectly from one to the next, and the slower tempo actually signified a more patient, controlled, mature sound. By this time, I was buying Muzik and Mixmag every month (expensive in the US!) and was learning more and more of the scene, including this genre I really came to love: PROGRESSIVE HOUSE. This was my "journey" if you will into the world of electronic dance music, mainly progressive house. Yes, I now love it and it all began with Sasha! (however, my fav DJ is John Digweed)



The main purpose of this review is not to review and analyze each track since many others have done so but to hopefully help someone who may be taking a peek into the world of EDM looking for something that's NOT what plays commercially on the radio, namely "radio dance music", "Euro dance" or "techno" (which is nothing like the real Detroit techno). Yes, I'm writing this review 10 years after I bought the CD but this album is so good, I think it's a perfect starter CD for those that are treading the waters of EDM. A lot has happened in the last 10 years in EDM and in progressive house. There was dark prog, then came electro/prog rock, then minimal, and now the residues of electro/minimal scene is still strong with tunes coming out of those artists like David Guetta (which I'm not a fan of). But the Ibiza CD captures the tracks and more importantly the vibe from what many veteran prog house fans consider as the golden years of progressive. Yes this album is over 10 years old but I think it's timeless. Infact, I'm listening to CD1 as I write this review and Sander Kleinenberg's "Sacred" is blasting in the background and wouldn't you know it, he was just here in my city this week (sadly I had to miss it).



If you're just starting out in EDM or have been in it for awhile but have never listened to progressive house from "back then", give this one a try. IMO, it is THE best album of the genre. If at first you don't like it, give it an honest listen a few times. Maybe even 5-6 times. I guarantee it will start to grow on you.



Also recommended: GU014, GU019, tune into or download John Digweed's Kiss 100 "Transition" radio show, and try some older Essential Mixes from 1998-2002. You'll really get a taste of some great progressive house."