- Sasha Fundacion Los Angeles: The End of the Affair
I knew that it would have to come one day but I knew that I would never be ready for it.
I had grown accustomed to seeing Sasha behind the DJ booth unleashing his aural pleasure for our ears. It never felt like a right but rather a privilege that Sasha had his residency in our town. A privilege that was definitely addictive. The more he came, the more we wanted.
Like a wife who loves her husband but knows that he’s cheating I ignored the fact that he also had a New York residency, mostly because I despise the fact that our scene is constantly compared to theirs. While New York has something to offer and L.A has a lot to offer, we are in different geographic locations with different histories; L.A is never going to be like New York and frankly, we don’t want to be (Please excuse that lashing but this is a debate that has gone on far too long).
I could also overlook it because I knew that Los Angeles was not the legal wife in this affair; after all, Sasha does live in New York now. And I hear that they just had a baby (Global Underground Fundacion NYC).
So me and a my Angelino brothers (and sisters of course) wanted some answers in this last show, and by answers we meant serious music.
For some of the shows during the residency it had felt as though the crowd and the music were on a much more elevated level that I could not tap into if I arrived in the middle of the night. Hence I arrived early so I could have a decent amount of alcohol in me by the time Sasha came on.
"there were many memorable moments...the battle of Burridge-Maven, when Lord Burridge (Lee) showed up...The winner of the Burridge-Maven battle was the audience."
Throughout the course of the Fundacion residency there were many memorable moments like the first night that Sasha played with his Maven, the custom controller that gives him the ability for live remixing and re-editing via Ableton Live. I could almost feel Sasha’s nervousness as he approached the decks….I mean…the Maven. Not to mention the questions racing through everyone’s heads….What if it turns off mid-show? What if it doesn’t start at all? What if it explodes and causes a sound so loud that it deafens the whole room? What if the building begins to fall apart because of the amazing sound quality? What if we just calm down and embark on Sasha’s show and just enjoy it? After all, he hasn’t let us down before….
There was the battle of Burridge-Maven, when Lord Burridge (Lee) showed up and battled Sasha until morning. (Please note that the term ‘battle’ being used here is not referring to actual physical displays of power….we have enough of that on TV when we get home (in fact, most of us come to the clubs to forget that stuff)…but rather the Hip Hop culture term which refers to artists engaging in a friendly game of revealing one another’s best music and musical skills). Sasha and Lee have been friends for a while and in fact were two of the original three members of Tyrant. The winner of the Burridge-Maven battle was the audience.
I remember the time when James ‘EyeAm Computer’ Zabiela made a guest appearance; it was good to see the boy wonder all grown up next to the Man once again. Sasha was also in Robot mode that night with his effects and crazy loop function on the Maven controller, a loop feature which seems to take effect by use of a “cross-fader” type fader. I must say that Sasha was not shy with the use of this feature, which at times made me question if a device such as the Maven could give people too much control. I guess the Maven in the wrong hands could spell musical disaster. But in the end, any tool if not properly used can be dangerous. James Zabiela’s performance was amazing to say the least, it was inspiring in that it promised a future of ever evolving music beyond the days of Fundacion.
There was also special guest Steve Porter, who gave us all a lesson in funkiness and kept the energy of the room vibrant throughout the night.
The final guest in the Los Angeles leg of Fundacion was Desyn Masiello. Having heard his set only a year ago on his tour with John Digweed for the release of the Original Series CD, I was not sure his style would mix with Sasha’s new experimental sound, but I was dead wrong. The truth is that a great DJ is constantly evolving and is quick to adapt, and on this night we had two great DJs to prove that.
Some tracks made familiar appearances at each of the shows, tracks such as Playgroup’s rework of Depeche Mode's classic ‘Behind the wheel’, which was always received with a roar from the Avalon crowd; Slam’s ‘This world’ (Wighnomy Brothers mix) always brought a tingle to my toes; Yoshimoto’s ‘Do What U Do’ (Trentmoller remix) marked the electroish tides of the time while Matthew Jonson’s remix of Hiem’s ‘She’s The One’ offered a peek into the sexy-scary-funky-distorted future of dance music.
"He did however manage to re-create the smoke screen and magic that got lost during the overload DJ boom..."
As the Fundacion nights progressed, it became increasingly difficult to describe the music, the crowd and the artist himself. He did however manage to re-create the smoke screen and magic that got lost during the overload DJ boom of the late nineties and early two thousands and in doing so, reinvented himself as a new category of DJ-Artist, surpassing the abilities of both with his live mixing.
DJs play other people’s tracks and artists play their own songs over and over, Sasha plays his version of any old track he fancies. And he re-remixes it all live. With his acute aural sense and The Maven, Sasha has all tools to take listeners to pastures greener than the brain can fathom. And while ‘stay-at-home-message-board’ critics continue to verbally batter his work, Sasha will continue striding forward challenging musical limits whilst losing some supporters (because they just don’t get it anymore) and gaining a lot more.
On my backstage adventures I ran into Sasha before he went on who gave me some words of hope; that he would eventually be releasing a Fundacion Los Angeles mix CD and that he would be coming back to L.A. for a residency in the future.
If you’re lucky, you can catch Sasha on his tour for the Fundacion NYC album or when he takes his Fundacion concept to Space in Ibiza.