Sahsa / Airdrawn Dagger

Sasha is one of the most successful DJs in the world, and after many years of playing house, trance and club music he announced he would be creating his own album. What was received was not expected, which left some fans abandoned, but others (myself included) admiring such a beautifully crafted piece of work that builds and grows throughout the album’s journey.

The moment I first heard this album, it has a hauntingly striking resemblance to Musicdisk created by Mellow-D back in 1998. For those completely unfamiliar with the "Tracking" scene, it was a way to create music inexpensively on the computer using samples and having the computer sequence them back, until MP3s took over and killed the scene. Some of the most popular groups being Kosmic, Future Crew and FM. I listened to Musicdisk more times than I can count, and it is a rare gem the sadly is lost in the avelanche of music and progress of technology. In fact, I would be suprised if Sahsa DIDN'T listen to this album to gleen inspiration from. You can download the album here, but you will need WinAmp to play the XM files back.

ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/fm/fm-disk.zip

ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/fm/fm-dplus.zip

Back to Sasha, Airdrawndagger is spectacular. You can dance to it, you can chill to it, and its sound is very unique. Easily one of my favorite albums to come out this decade.

Evil Nine / You Can Be Special Too

I first heard of Evil Nine listening to a mix by The Crystal Method. Though I liked what I heard, I never purchased a full album of theirs. Listening to The Crystal Method's weekly radio broadcast, Community Service on Indie 103.1, I live chatted with them and asked for an album recommendation. They recommended the new Evil Nine album, but at the time had not been released yet, so I picked up their older one, You Can Be Special Too.

Incredible. Evil Nine pushes big beat music into other genres such as rap and each song is unique. Some of the standout tracks are Crooked, Devil Stuff, Pearl Shot, You Are Not Through, For Lovers Not Fighters, and Restless.

Here their music videos for Crooked. The art style is clever, solid rap and tough beats with beautiful backup synths:


Having listened to it many times, the album is very enjoyable and their talent is heard in the attention to detail. With the recent release of their new album, They Live!, I will post that review once I have had some time with it. Until then, remember that You can Be Special Too.

Dub Pistols / Point Blank - Still Good After 10 Years

I only got turned onto this album a few years ago. Listening to this last night I checked the cover and to my suprise it was released in 1998. Ten years later it still sound fresh. Tracks like Ghetto and Blaze the Room are hard hitting and well crafted. An album well worth picking up, Dub Pistols / Point Blank.