Sasha – Global Underground 009: San Francisco

Love the remark form another reviewer ‘Sasha is what got me into this mess.’

Snap! So I’m not coming at this in a cynical attempt to ruffle a few feathers, and admittedly I still haven’t recovered from 1994’s REN 1 which is still the pinnacle in my book.

However… brace yourselves: I just don’t understand why a lot of reviewers prefer this to Ibiza! (I’ll get my coat) It feels more disjointed. Both mixes start exceptionally well and you begin to settle in for some Sasha magic. But both mixes stray into a fairly generic prog trance mould, and it’s quite ugly. It doesn’t feel as well conceived. Ibiza mix 1 towers above in terms of conception and overall impact.

Hey ho… love the intros though.

Sasha's San Francisco is by far my favorite in the Global Underground series and would rank as my favorite Trance CD period. Both discs have a very dark, eerie start to them with what sounds like recordings of street people singing and discussing the dark side of San Francisco. It slowly builds from this into some of the best trance mixes I've heard. It's hard to go wrong with the efforts in the GU series and you can't go wrong with this one.

1998-1999 was a good recovery and return to form after the epic house phase. This actually sounds like it would work in a club.

Sasha got played here and included a track from 1994 that was re-released in 1998.
Illuminatus - Hope (Oliver Lieb Remix)

Who ever came up with the intro for CD 2 better have the sorest hand ever from all the high-fives they received afterwards…

Hasn’t aged well - just don’t rate this mix that highly in Sasha’s canon. It sounded dated even a few years after it’s release and I find the track selection ( and mixing ) bland, clunky and uninspiring.

Any optimism from the nice build in the first few tracks on Discs 1 and 2 stagnates quickly into a generic prog trancey affair which I cannot abide. Ultimately it doesn’t add up to much more than that.

It has it’s moments but compared to GU Ibiza it’s average. Maybe we were spoilt in the mid 1990s with Renaissance volume one which is still the benchmark

I know that this ltd long box release had 2 booklets in each cd case but did it also booklet but did it also originally have one long booklet? A confirmation yes or no would help.

This is the sound of Sasha in 1999/2000 taking you on a deep, percussive, progressive trip. There are elements of other worldy ambient, deep house, tech house, progressive and the cooler more underground end of progressive trance, even some techco ala Jark Prongo-Movin' thru your system. A classic journey that many come back to time and time again.
Why was there never a vinyl LP release like there was with Sasha-Ibiza GU? I think GU mixed a trick there.

The first 20 or so minutes of Disc 2 are pure bliss.

one of the most important sets ever released - this is sasha at his very best presenting electronica like no other... masterful mixing and selection of tracks... both cd's are stunning & emotional and the technical value of the mixing and the tracks themselves - total sonic orgasm... ahead of its time and still timeless, no one does it like sasha!!!!... im rediscovering this release since 1998 - this odyssey of music never lets me down .... 10/10