DJ Sasha to close tour in Seoul

M2, an electronic dance club in Hongdae, launches its first Platinum party series headlining none other than superstar DJ Sasha, who is ending his “Involver” Asia tour with a party in Seoul.
Sasha will be performing at M2, a club in Hongdae, tomorrow night with support from DJ Blakjak, who is based in Hong Kong. Advance tickets have sold out, but tickets are available through Ohoo until 5 p.m. tonight if you wire the money into their account.
Organizers will have a limited number of tickets at the door, but the admission fee and numbers will be determined later tonight. But since M2 can accommodate 1,200 people and the last Sasha party drew 2,500 people, organizers are expecting the event to be a sellout.
Sasha first visited Korea two years ago at Sheraton WalkerHill. Once he got into his groove, he kept going, inviting the audience to rush the stage, then moving the party to the now-defunct Hongdae club Matmata.
Back then, Sasha was touring Asia after the release of “AirDrawnDagger,” his first studio album, which generated talk that it could create its own genre, like Leftfield did with his 1995 “Leftism.”
Welsh-born, Sasha began his career as a DJ at the end of the 1980s, when warehouse parties were the big thing. He became prominent when he formed a partnership with John Digweed for slots at Twilo in New York City. He released mixes on the Global Underground, Northern Exposure and Communicate labels, winning acclaim for a 1999 EP called “Xpander.”
All of this built up to “AirDrawnDagger,” a downtempo experiment that built on itself. “Whilst deceptively simple, the genius in this glittering, euphoric masterpiece is the subtlety in the production, demonstrating Sasha’s expert execution and gift for twiddling knobs,” wrote the BBC.
With “Involver,” Sasha blurs the line between a mix album and a remix album. He had some of his favorite artists, including the likes of Ulrich Schnauss, Felix da Housecat, Unkle and Grand National, give him the tracks for some of their songs. He took those tracks apart and remixed songs as if he were playing in a club.
In a news blurb on Global Underground, he says, “Things like The Youngsters and Spooky are tracks that I’ve been playing for two or three years. I’m presenting them back out into the world again my own way, which is exactly what DJs always talk about doing. ... The fact that I got all the separate parts to the mixes and put it all back together to create my own sound is the ultimate form of DJing.”
Robb Harker of Sickboy Pro has brought to Korea DJs like Sasha, Fatboy Slim, Paul Van Dyk and DJ Shadow. Mr. Harker says he wanted Sasha back in Seoul for one simple reason: “He’s Sasha.”

by Joe Yonghee

For more information, visit the Web site at www.ohoo.net. Tickets by direct deposit are 32,000 won ($30).