Track Listing

1. Dremples
2. Mr Tiddles
3. Magnetic North
4. Cloud Cuckoo
5. Immortal
6. Fundamental
7. Boileroom
8. Bloodlock
9. Requiem
10. Golden Arm
11. Wavey Gravy

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15012 in Music
• Released on: 2002-08-03
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Sasha's debut album, Airdrawndagger, has surely been one of the most long-awaited records in the history of music. Ever since this good-looking Chester boy burst into the DJ mainstream in 1991, he's alluded to a full-length artist album in the works, and the few compositions that saw the light of day--notably, his excellent Xpander EP--were enough to demonstrate his prodigious production talents. Despite the inordinate wait, Airdrawndagger will not disappoint: building on the cavernous, progressive trance sound of Xpander, Sasha pushes the envelope into new digital realms without ever losing his trademarked subtle touch. There are whispers of every global dancefloor sound here, from Sheffield to Detroit, Berlin to Rio--but ultimately, Airdrawndagger is intended as much as an outlet for Sasha's eerie, filmic synth excursions and heavenly ambient drone pieces as it is for simple dancefloor suss. "Dremples" and "Mr Tiddles" are ambient headphones-friendly numbers, faintly reminiscent of laid-back electronica experimentalists such as Plaid or early Autechre, but the prog-technoid stomp of "Fundamental" and the breakbeat trance of "Wavy Gravy" should be more than enough to keep Sasha's raving constituency stoked. No tacky celebrity collaborations, either--Airdrawndagger is a rare, admirable trance-floor treat. --Louis Pattison

CD Description
Debut artist album from Alexander Coe aka Sasha, one of thebiggest names in the dance industry. Drawing on his many years of experience creating DJ mix CDs and remixes for a widevariety of artists, he has produced an atmospheric, chilled-out album which draws on house, ambient, and nu-skool breaks. Features contributions from Junkie XL, Spooky's Charlie May, and James Holden.

Customer Reviews

Sasha rises from the ashes!
Airdrawndagger has reminded me why listening to Sasha dj-ing in the early to mid-nineties used to stand my hairs on end and send goosepimples rushing over my body. It may have taken over a decade for Alexander Coe (real name) to be bothered to put together an album, but it's well worth the wait. This is a quite brilliant 68 minutes of progressive house, breakbeat, ethereal trance and IDM. Listening to the ablum as a whole is like immersing yourself in one of Sasha's legendary sets as he toys with your emotions, building to crescendo after crescendo. It's almost impossible to pick stand-out tracks because there's not one dud, but 'Bloodlock' and 'Requiem' are both tunes of astonishing beauty. Puts Oakenfold's debut in the shade.

One word - QUALITY.
It's been a long wait, but Sasha wasn't going to rush out any old rubbish, he was gonna wait til he felt he had something special, and I can confirm that Airdrawndagger is very special indeed. Moving from beautiful, hypnotic chill-out tunes to funky as f**k progressive breaks, there's elements of Orbital, Leftfield and even Radiohead in there, but this album is unique and original and very Sasha. There's no full-on progressive tracks like many people might expect (Bloodlock and Golden Arm come closest), and there's no dodgy collaborations like you might find on certain other DJ's albums! It's a collection of tunes that will still sound fresh in ten years time, and you'll hear something new with every listen.

If you're looking for a must-have CD to add to your collection, look no further.

Pushing the boundaries of modern dance
When I first got this album, I was expecting the same kind of trance that you see everywhere nowadays. I must admit I had not heard much of Sasha before buying this album, but believe me, now I'm hunting out every last record he has released. This album is absolutely beautiful. Let me explain why.

Most trance albums now are all the same. However, Sasha has managed here to push the boundaries of modern dance. This is not the kind of music you would dance about to, not most of it anyway. It is a very eclectic ambient-trance/prog. house affair, and it's wonderful. The use of synths in this album is brilliant, and Sasha really shines when it comes to solo synth sections. The use of breaks and 4/4 beats is great, and he makes the listener actually stop for a moment and, well, listen. This is the kind of album where you actually have to sit down and listen really closely to, because there is a lot going on. That's not to say the album is crowded, it just manages to pack a lot in to it. All of the tracks have a very atmospheric feel to them, like trance with attitude. The songs that really stand out are Magnetic North, Bloodlock, Fundamental, Cloud Cookoo and Wavy Gravy, but the rest are really good as well.

I am hoping that someone will actually sit down and listen right through this album as I have done. Like the Northern Exposure albums, this album is more than a cd. It's a exploration.