Da Vinci: Genius Sasha

Dance music royalty Sasha returns to Night Time Stories with his latest project ‘Da Vinci Genius’, released 29th November. 

His 2016 release ‘Scene Delete’ on the same label was Sasha as you’ve never heard him before: an imaginary movie soundtrack score, and a slight left-turn for the veteran producer/DJ. 

So, Sasha, the classical music composer? An immersive show that debuted in Berlin in 2021 and then transferred a year later to Amsterdam, ‘Da Vinci Genius’ featured the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, the great Italian Renaissance polymath. Although the score is inspired and draws heavily on the notion of movie and TV scores, he used his experience as an electronic music producer – and movie buff – to re-frame his work and enlisted the help of ‘Scene Delete’ veterans Dennis White, Dave Gardner and Barry Jamieson to assist in this complex task.

“I’ve never written music like this before, so it was really exciting and interesting to do it. We wanted to capture some of the atmosphere of those incredible film scores we were inspired by. But also, we really wanted to try and strike this balance between classical music and electronic sounds. The nearest we’d come to classical music was sampling it. So, we said, let’s try and recreate these movies and sounds, so our approach was a lot more considered. We listened to the ‘Barry Lyndon’ score – because it’s Handel – and ‘Interstellar’ and ‘Succession’ and those ideas just kind of fitted creatively where we were at. We started in a place where we knew this was going to be a score. It was hard work, but it’s one of the most accomplished things we’ve ever done.” 

A dream-like journey from start to finish, the nuances, atmosphere and melodic layers of compositions such as ‘Mosiac’, ‘Equality’ and ‘Clouds’, are woven into soft melodies and emotive timbres, and are perfectly presented. It’s only with compositions such as the beatific ‘Super Hero (with Sentre)’ and ‘Into The Metaverse’ where Sasha reverts to a more familiar sound, we would normally associate with him. 

With ‘Da Vinci Genius’, it feels like Sasha may be moving into the next phase of his career. “I really wanted to try and strike a balance between classical music and electronic music, because although the show focuses on Leonardo’s original art, in most points of the show it’s getting messed with electronically. For instance, the Mona Lisa appears and then gets dissembled. So, I wanted to capture this classical mood, but with electronics behind it.”