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Involver 2

Involver 2


Other Views:
Artist: Sasha
Label: Global Underground
Category: Music

Buy New: $19.98



Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars 27 reviews
Sales Rank: 73127

Format: Limited Edition
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 2
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5

UPC: 828272130238
EAN: 0828272130238
ASIN: B001DSNGBS

Release Date: September 9, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

Tracks:

  Disc 1
  • Intro - Sasha, Coe, A.
  • You Are the Worst Thing in the World - Sasha, Eustis
  • Flesh - Sasha,
  • Eclipse - Sasha, Coe, A.
  • Lowlife - Sasha, Coe, A.
  • Midnight - Sasha, Coe, A.
  • Arcadia - Sasha, Ring, Sascha
  • That You Might - Sasha, Gross, David
  • Destroy Everything You Touch - Sasha,
  • Couleurs - Sasha, Gonzalez, Anthony
  • The Eraser - Sasha, Yorke, Thom
  • Little Piggys - Sasha, Coe, A.
  • Sometimes I Realise - Sasha, Engineers

  Disc 2
  • The Eraser - Sasha, Yorke, Thom
  • Flavor - Sasha, Wielemans, A.
  • Burma - Sasha,
  • Gas Tank - Sasha, Gross, David
  • Midnight - Sasha, Coe, A.
  • Eclipse - Sasha, Coe, A.

Similar Items:

  • Global Underground: Lima
  • Transitions 4
  • Renaissance: The Mix Collection
  • A State of Trance 2008
  • In Search of Sunrise, Vol. 7: Asia

Editorial Reviews:

Album Description
Limited Edition Two CD set. 13 tracks. Unlike dance mixes that are simply compilation CDs consisting of hits blended together in a continuous flow, DJ Sasha's Involver is a mix that features both the artist's own music and exclusive tracks from other electronic artists. The resultant vibe is more like a traditional single-artist album than a collection of unrelated songs. In addition to the usual mixer and turntable techniques that form the basis of dance DJs' stock-in-trade, Sasha employs cutting-edge computer manipulation and a wide array of vintage synthesizers to blur the line between fully produced recordings and live improvisatory disc-spinning. Using his trademark trance aesthetic as a starting point, Sasha establishes a spare, cool-as-ice feel with a distinctly European flavor. He maintains this throughout, slowly building the tracks with the care of a painter, and ultimately delivering an album equally suited for the club or a post-party headphone session. Rolling Stone - 3 1/2 stars out of 5 - "One satisfying set....This is Sasha's most substantial work in years." CMJ - "Stylistically, he veers far off the progressive path, offering moody textures, fractured breaks and crunching guitars..."


Customer Reviews:   Read 22 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars every track isn't a winner but the majority are   December 26, 2008
Big T (7 minutes in the future)
Not all tracks are keepers, but you should be able to get a full CD worth of awesome tracks if you burn what you like off CD 1 and 2. Great mixing of the tracks as few can do. One of the best CDs out this year AND BEST YET... it's tracks that you'll only find on this CD vs. hearing on other compilations. Very original work.

For perspective I also enjoy Markus Schulz, Gabriel & Dresden, Above & Beyond, Cosmic Gate, Tiesto, Andrew Bennett, Sander Van Doorn, etc.



4 out of 5 stars A satisfying achievement, following more on FUNDACION NYC than the first volume with its electro vibe   December 22, 2008
Christopher Culver
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

It has been over four years since Sasha released Involver, a hugely successful single-CD set consisting entirely of his own remixes of notable and lesser-known tracks. In 2005, he released Fundacion NYC, a document of what he was playing in clubs at the time on his bespoke Ableton Live software, which sadly attracted little attention in spite of being in my opinion a major artistic high point. Encouraged to provide a follow-up specifically to INVOLVER, Sasha gave us INVOL2VER in mid-2008. Again, the set consists entirely of Sasha remixes, but the overall sound reliably reflects his electro interests of recent years, as against the progressive house and guitar pop mixture of the original INVOLVER.

Like FUNDACION NYC, the mix begins with ambience especially created by Sasha under his "Badger" moniker. This then falls into the fun electro pop of Telefon Tel Aviv's "You are the Worst Thing in the World". The mix of Sasha vs Adam Parker's "Lowlife" into Charlie May's "Midnight" is sudden and incongruous, and yet strangely beautiful and effective, much like the shoehorning together of Breeder's "Tyrrantanic" and Luzon's "The Baguio Track" on the Sasha and John Digweed collaboration COMMUNICATE back in 2000. Other reviewers have commented on Sasha's treatment of vocals in some of the tracks, distorting them to the point that they produce little more than a melody with little textual significance. This is generally a wise move, as lame lyrics have always been a weak point of the dance music genre.

Ladytron's "Everything You Touch" provides the only really disappointing moment of this mix, with its annoying distorted female vocal loop at the beginning, though the track gets better from there. The real climax of the set comes with Thom Yorke's "The Eraser", which is brief but absolutely searing with its ice-cold production and vaguely threatening wording. Sasha winds the set down with one of his own recent tracks, "3 Little Piggys", and then gives us some appropriate exit music with Engineers' "Sometimes I Realize".

Though I still think Sasha's best performance of this millennium is FUNDACION NYC (ignore my Amazon review of it, I was thinking stupid at the time), INVOL2VER is an impressive achievement. In my opinion, it certainly beats the original INVOLVER, which often out of touch with Sasha's real tastes and talents.



4 out of 5 stars Mind Music   December 4, 2008
Todd Croak-Falen (Los Angeles, CA)
Just ordered it, and I've been listening to it quite a bit since it arrived. I especially like the track "3 Little Piggys." On my first listen, I thought disc one as a whole was decent, but had certain highlights. In listening to it again all the way through the next day, I like it even more. Very immersive.

Once I'm done with disc one, I'm usually still wanting more...so it's nice that this is a two-CD set, and I can just roll into disc two without stopping!



3 out of 5 stars Either a Master, or a Master of Deception?   November 29, 2008
Globalaza (Washington, DC)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful

I have always had a strange relationship with Sasha's studio productions. Either he is a true mixing master or is the beneficiary of a lot of hype. I still haven't quite figured out which even after listening to the follow-up to the first Involver.

This latest effort is incredibly detailed, with so many smooth transitions going on, and is so full of atomsphere that the word that comes to mind while listening is "elegant." It is elegant trance music. None of the harsh, jarring and head-crushing dribble that keeps permeating the dance scene after all these years.

Involver2 is not soft. It's not lounge. It is dance music to be sure -- but it is also to be listened to, and really absorbed. Is it unique, NO. Is it new, NO. Is it innovative, not really. Is it good, yes. It's excellent in fact. But it still seems like it is only half - the softer half - of the classic work he did with Digweed (whose Transitions 4 is superb, by the way). So it seems incomplete, as if some ingredients are missing from a great meal. Good songs, good mixing, but directionless.

Sasha has either created something new: a detailed and intricately mixed atomsphere of danceable trance, or he is just throwing similar sounding tracks on a disk, mixing them well and selling it as a complete work, as with Fundacion (3 stars) and the first Involver (3 stars).

With Involver 2, Sasha has produced creative music that we all will eventually catch up to or he has us all fooled.


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