Airdrawndagger

Airdrawndagger

Embracing neither the rampant guest appearances favored by the Chemical Brothers, nor the blatant, pop-flavored pandering of recent work from Paul Oakenfold and BT, Sasha's first studio full-length mimics the up-down-up pattern of a classic trance mix. As closely associated as he is with John Digweed, <I>Airdrawndagger</I> illustrates their different tendencies: Digweed is most comfortable with sinister, subterranean grooves, while Sasha is always threatening to float over the dance floor. Accordingly, <I>Airdrawndagger</I>'s head is firmly in the clouds, but it's also a clever mish-mash, convincingly melding electro and ambient sounds with occasional four-on-the-floors, like "Bloodlock" and "Golden Arm." Tracks like "Mr. Tiddles" have a warm facility with machines worthy of a Depeche Mode, as Sasha transforms the grandiose, operatic pretensions of trance into a quick and potent chunk of dance pop. The brooding "Cloud Cuckoo" starts off in a similar vein before building itself up into a wash of overlapping beats and sweeping melody that recalls Sasha's <I>Xpander</I> EP. Throughout the record, Sasha stretches himself in the right directions, pulling off the trick of sticking to what he does best while summoning up the creative juice to make <I>Airdrawndagger</I> just new enough to be fascinating. <I>--Matthew Cooke</I>