Sasha

Alexander Paul Coe (born 4 September 1969), known professionally as Sasha, is a Welsh DJ and record producer.

He is best known for his live events and electronic music as a solo artist, as well as his collaborations with British DJ John Digweed as Sasha & John Digweed.

Sasha was born in Bangor, Wales, on 4 September 1969.

His early musical taste was primarily Top 40 pop music like The The and The Police.

After what he described as an "idyllic childhood", Sasha passed the entrance exam for Hatfield College at age 17.

However, he did not like Epsom and left before completing his A-Level examinations.

Instead of continuing his schooling, Sasha moved to Bangor to live with his father and stepmother.

Sasha's stepmother forced him to take piano lessons which, although he disliked them at the time, he ultimately found to be beneficial to his music career.

Sasha began his career playing acid house music in the late 1980s.

Sasha became aware of electronic dance music in 1988 at The Haçienda, a Manchester dance venue.

Drawn to the rough sound of acid house music and the rebellious attitude he associated with it, he visited Manchester weekly and soon moved to nearby Disley.

Sasha purchased records and began to teach himself how to mix.

A local DJ at a club Sasha frequented announced that he was looking for other DJs to travel with him on a regional tour; Sasha volunteered and made his first live appearance in nearby Stockport.

He recalled of his debut, "I'd never even touched a Technics: I thought the pitch control was the volume, I didn't even know where to plug my headphones in! I'm sure I was absolutely horrendous."

Sasha soon found himself in debt due to low-paying performances and the many records he bought.

To finance his record collection, he performed at illegal warehouse raves in the Blackburn and Blackpool areas.

With the assistance of another local DJ, Jon DaSilva, Sasha secured work at The Haçienda, where he learned key mixing (matching melodic keys) from DaSilva and refined his ability to beatmatch (to synchronize the beats of two simultaneously playing records).

Though he enjoyed playing at The Haçienda, in 1990 Sasha left for a club called Shelley's Laserdrome in Stoke-on-Trent.

There, he established part of his signature sound by mixing euphoric acid house music with Italian piano house and emotional a cappellas.

Because of his increased popularity and visibility at Shelley's, Mixmag featured Sasha on its first cover, under the headline "SASHA MANIA – THE FIRST DJ PINUP?".

While continuing to DJ, Sasha began to produce several of his own dance tracks.

This, he later noted, was contrary to the career paths of many successful DJs, for whom it was more common to start out as producers.

Upon signing a recording contract, he also set up an entire recording studio at the same time, which led to a "painful learning curve" at the outset.

He released his first single, "Appolonia", under the name BM:Ex (the name is short for The Barry Manilow Experience, a joke in reference to Sasha's love of the piano), with producer Tom Frederikse on Union City Recordings.

After DJing at Shelley's for several years, Sasha left his position because of increasing gang violence in and around the club.

As a result of his growing reputation, Sasha was offered work in several London and Australian clubs.

He accepted, instead, a spot in the DJ rotation at Renaissance, a club night started by Geoff Oakes at Venue 44 in Mansfield, England.

He partnered with John Digweed in 1993, touring internationally and producing a series of mix albums (compilations of other artists' work played in a continuous fashion).

Sasha has remixed tracks for artists such as D-Ream, Madonna, Moby, the Chemical Brothers and Hot Chip.

Sasha's remixing and production often combine electronic music genres, making it difficult for critics to pinpoint his musical style.

Later in 1993, Sasha, collaborating with Danny Campbell for Pete Tong's FFRR, produced "Together", his first single under the name Sasha.

"Together" peaked on the UK Singles Chart at #57.

With this success, Sasha began a series of records for Deconstruction Records with the singles "Higher Ground" and "Magic" (for which Digweed produced a remix) and The Qat Collection with Frederikse and vocalist Sam Mollison.

In early 1993, Sasha partnered with fellow Renaissance DJ John Digweed.

As well as remixes and compilation albums, Sasha has produced three albums of original works: The Qat Collection in 1994, Airdrawndagger in 2002, and Scene Delete in 2016.

After achieving success as a producer and DJ, Sasha worked with younger DJs and producers such as BT and James Zabiela.

His use of live audio engineering equipment helped popularise technological innovations among DJs who formerly relied on records and turntables.

He was voted as World No.⁠ ⁠1 DJ in 2000 in a poll conducted by DJ Magazine.

He is a four-time International Dance Music Awards winner, four-time DJ Awards winner and Grammy Award nominee.

In 2007, he formed a record label with Renaissance Records called emFire, which is the exclusive outlet for his new music.