Sasha - Airdrawndagger

Once again I am making an attempt to describe music - and the feeling it gives me - with words. This CD, just as most of Sasha's production, is close to what I call musical perfection. The track layout is perfect. The album starts up nice and slow, moves on to a harder and more uptempo part, to finish off nice and slow again. Also, all the tracks are made with greatest perfection and musical skill. My personal favourites are 'Mr. Tiddles', 'Cloud Cuckoo' and 'Bloodlock'.

Fair to say that this album genrates wildly varying opinions from it's listeners, which is a good thing as nothing is more boring than everybody singing it's praises, you need to challenge people...and this album does that. Personally, I love it. I don't quite know why; as others have said, it is free from the programming complexity of most progressive/breaks tunes and isn't a purely ambient experience. But what makes it special for me is the feel of the album in it's entirety. The tone of the album is established from Drempels onwards, that of electronic music with influences from trance, ambient, progressive house and breaks. I can't really pigeon-hole it any better than that.

Sasha shipped a hell of alot of criticism on release of this album, at the time I thought it unfair and on reflection I think it was the reaction of his hardcore fanbase, the trance connosueirs finding it too ambient and the progressive fans finding it too laidback. I don't see it as either. Credit to Sasha and his cohorts they attempted to make an album as opposed to a collection of singles or an album of generic proggy bangers. The beauty of this album lies in the journey it takes you through, exquisite production that doesn't suffocate the tracks with effects but allows the melodies and sparse beats room to breathe. I love it, I was unsure when I first bought it 5 years ago but I get something out of it every time I listen to it.
Sasha's recent effort "Involver" doesn't even warrant mention in the same breath as Airdrawndagger for it serves to cater to a narrow seam of the electronic music smorgasboard, generic proggressive house. This is Sahsa's best work and deserves some patience as the album will bring years of pleasure to those willing to revisit it with an older, more experienced and cultured taste in electronica IMHO.

Nope...After at least 20 listenings I now have an opinion that counts. And in my opinion this is perhaps the most overrated electronica-album ever!
We have "cloud cuckoo", "boileroom" and "wavy gravy". Three great tracks, but absolutely not enough for making an album "great". I think people only rates this album high because it is Sasha, mr. Status. And it's not even Sasha who makes the music, on "bloodlock" it is james holden who makes a copy of his own style at that time and at the rest of the songs it is spooky, aka Charlie May.

No, Sasha should stay where he belongs: behind the dj-decks. Because there he is one of the biggest!

Thinking back of the Samothraki Festival in Greece 2003 I think it is fair to say that the most crazy experience music - and otherwise - was when I danced for about an hour and a half with a tree at the chill out stage one night. This is why I am sometimes not quite sure whether a certain type of music should be labelled chill-out, ambient, progressive or psy-trance. I mean, you are supposed to chill at the chill-out stage, right? But play the right, quality, down-beat / chill-out at the right time, and you'll have everyone going crazy. This is what happened at the Samothraki Festival. Down beat music on chill stage with everyone going at it like crazy, things even more wicked than on main stage.

Sasha wasn't at Samothraki but Airdrawndagger represents exactly the sort of music I'm thinking off. I could hear this music in the afternoon at the chill-out stage, roll a splif, relax and enjoy. Maybe dance a little. Or I could hear some of the trax here at night and go dance berserk. My favourite dance track here has to be Fundamental. The kick-in at 8:05. What is this?! Progressive chill-out ...?!? But it's not fair to single one track out. Up-beat, down-beat, they're all fantastic!

And I almost never got to hear this album! Only heard it cause a friend insisted I'd give this Sasha album a chance. "I think you'll like it", he said. Well, thanks buddy! Right on - I love it!

What can I say? Get it get it get it ...

sasha® (aka Alexander Coe, Charlie May, JXL, James Holden, etc. ... I say that because they all deserve credit for the sasha® brand of products, not just Coe) have a knack at programming. This album, while for the most part not being very complex in sound layers, does have the uncanny ability to bring out complex emotions through its simplistic, yet practical layout.

But then it also builds up to a delicious, driving techy climax. I'm sure everyone who hears Bloodlock for the first time will agree that they expected another ambient track...but when its trademark Holden bassline crackles through the speakers (especially after travelling on the entire airdrawndagger® journey), you realise that this album is something special.

well done to sasha®...and I hope to see more of them in the future

With Sasha being the Father and the Son of Progressive Trance you will not be surprised to hear that Progressive also makes the backbone of the album. But the man apparently also has a huge affinity for ambient and the combination of those two styles results in this emotional dagger being plunged right into your cortex.
Some say the album is nothing new - they are right - but isn’t it nice to be given this vivid blast from the past, right from the era where Global Communication and Robert Leiner were searching for some more reflective gloomy soundstructures? This is splendid ever going pulsing ambient, ranging from the massive hoovering Bloodlock to the cheerful sequenzing Requiem.

This, along with Delerium's 'Chimera' is one of the few albums I own that I can enjoy every single track. I can listen to the whole album, without loss of interest, deeply lost in the subtle tones and precision of this album.

Many would say this album is clinical and cold, however, each track presents a different mood, and proves this to be an emotional album, as well as one you can rely on to fit whatever surroundings you are in. I find when walking to the station every day, in the cold, fresh air, that this music fits this scene so well, almost as if it was made for this. However this doesn't mean this is cold music. This album is a very thought provoking album, and sets your imagination off, whilst interpreting the sounds. I believe Sasha (Alexander Coe) put a lot of thought and emotion into this album, and this album is certainly fresh!

This album is one of those spine chilling albums, you hear a part of a track that reaches the perfection in sound, such as the soft 'bells', that start close to the end of Fundamental. Other places include; Wavy Gravy, where the metronome type sound stops, and you can hear the Wavy Gravy melody, with sharp crisp electronic effects, complementing it in the background.

Every track in this album is good, but standout tracks are; Wavy Gravy, Boileroom; the most fast paced tracks, and Mr Tiddles, Magnetic North, Requiem - which are all relaxing.

The best thing about this album, is that is the purest electronica you will hear. No instruments, just synthesised sounds, and the occasional metronome type sound as in 'Wavy Gravy', however the naming of this track doesn't deserve praise!

Perhaps this is a music equivilant to modern art? It means different things to different people. It certainly means a lot to me, and I can always rely on this album to give me something to lift my spirit.

I think this album is the best as Sasha ever made...
Ambient feelings contemplated through progressive trance and breaks soundscapes with freshness, coldness, some sadness and something positive what is difficult to desciribe. You have to feel it inside of you.

This album is better than Involver compilation for me.It has more power for sure.

Great job, dude.

A nicely made album, although not worthy of the name Sasha has built up for himself - especially when you consider that it was mainly produced by Junkie XL and Charlie May, with Sasha having very little to do with the actually making of it.

Also, surely the tag 'progressive' is supposed to suggest progression? If anything this album sounds 10 years old.

When set next to 1% of what is released in the ambient/techno vein, this sounds very basic and short in ideas.

Generally i wouldn't have even considered touching this sort of album with a ten foot pole let alone even contemplate that i might actually enjoy it. A superstar DJ who rarely produces, overblown marketing hype and a friend whose previous recomendations had shown me how vastly different our tastes were all stood against me liking liking this in the slightest. But for once my prejudice against all things in the 'progressive' genre was prooven to be a mistake and i was thoroughly suprised by the sounds contained within. Utterly magical and extremely musical.