This Autumn, the lauded dance music legends Sasha and Digweed revisit, rework and expand their seminal progressive-dub-trance-breaks odyssey, ‘Northern Exposure.’ This three disc set will finally debut on streaming platforms, alongside deluxe edition CD, and vinyl editions, with brand new art, packaging, and extensive sleeve-notes.
The original version of Northern Exposure was released in 1996, as a putative successor to their hit compilation, ‘The Mix Collection,’ which was the first gold certified mix released in the UK, and sold over 200,000 copies worldwide. “There was quite a lot of pressure to live up to that,” recalls Sasha. “But we didn’t want to just deliver a Saturday night peak-time album. We wanted to capture the whole environment – the atmosphere that’s around the dancefloor, around our peak sets, what goes on after hours, and what goes on before.”
The pair had slowly been building a following in the US, and whilst, most notably in Orlando, they gained exposure to a burgeoning American breakbeat scene. “After the “Mix collection”, we thought, we’ve got to do something completely different with this – and the introduction of all those breaks, we knew no-one would be expecting that,” comments Digweed. “Disc 1 would not have sounded like that if it wasn’t for the fact that we’d been playing in Florida, where those breaks were massive. Someone over there gave us the Young American Primitive album, and records by the Rabbit in the Moon, the Hallucination, and Hardkiss stuff, which had a big impact because it wasn’t just breakbeat, it was the atmosphere that went with it”.
Very much a product of now, for the newly added Disc 3, Sasha and Digweed utilised modern technology adding their own magic touch. The duo have created something new, somewhere between ambient reworks and dubs, where tracks pulse weightlessly, focussing on melody, mood and otherworldly sound design. “We rebuilt and reshaped the material using modern tools. But we embraced the character and beautiful imperfections of the original pieces of music. We tried to refocus it through a modern lens, drawing inspiration from reinterpretations by dub artists like Bill Laswell and Mad Professor. It feels like we discovered a forgotten version that was hiding behind the beats.”
On re-working the epic ‘Dark and Long’ which closes disc 2, Darren Emerson adds, “Dark and Long first came out in 1994 and was already a monster on the floor, a staple of my Ministry of Sound residency and clubs right across the UK, so it meant a lot when Sasha and John Digweed featured it on their first ‘Northern Exposure back’ in 1996. Their support gave it another boost and took it to an even wider crowd. So when they asked me to bring a new version to Northern Exposure 30, all these years on, it felt like a real full circle. I’m proud to be part of what they’ve created for this seminal release, and I hope people enjoy hearing it as much as I loved making it.”
In summary then, this is a classic, timeless snapshot of a time and place. “There’s something about the atmosphere of this album that really is wonderful. And it also shows the birth of a sound that’s turned into this behemoth of a music scene. It’s become this gigantic sound around the world. And some of the music that we put onto this album was the beginnings of it all. Sonically it stands up, too. The fact that 30 years later, it’s getting re-released is mental – and great!”
Sasha and John Digweed ‘Northern Exposure Redux’
CD, vinyl, digital released September 25th
Digital release including additional mix October 9th
Late Night Tales/Night Time Stories
tracklist:
1. Keiichi Suzuki – Satellite Serenade (Transasian Express Mix)
2. The Future Sound Of London – Cascade (Part 1)
3. Young American Primitive – These Waves
4. Raincry – Raincry (Submerged)
5. Rabbit In The Moon – Out Of Body Experience
6. Morgan King – I’m Free (Playdo’s Minimalist Mix)
7. Morgan King – I’m Free (The Full Length La Serrena Mix)
8. Aether feat. Maria Nayler – Kites
9. Fuzzy Logic feat. Erire – Obsession (Quantum Loop Mix)
10. William Orbit – Water From A Vine Leaf (Spooky’s Xylem Flow Mix)
11. Apollo 440 – Liquid Cool (Deep Forest Ice Cold @ The Equator Mix)
12. Banco de Gaia – Last Train To Lhasa
13. Dope On Plastic – Wave Dub
14. Drum Club – Sound System (Underworld Mix)
15. Castle Trancelott – The Gloom
16. Pete Lazonby – Wave Speech (NE Edit)
17. Evolution – Phoenix
18. The Light – Dusk
19. X-Tracks – Plan ’94 (The Voyage)
20. Mellow Mellow – I Can’t Stop (Parrot Trance)
21. Banco de Gaia – Heliopolis (Eedupolis Dog Mix)
22. Humate And Rabbit In The Moon – East (Opium Den Mix)
23. Darren Emerson – Dark and Long (Dark Train) [2026 Remake]
24. Various Artists – 0°/North Mix
25. Various Artists – 0°/South Mix
Sasha & John Digweed 2026 DJ Tour Dates
Sasha & John Digweed – Back to Back
4 Jul – Labyrinth Open Air (6-hr set) Tofte Manor, Bedford, UK
10-12 Jul – Sundance / Sun Dance Festival Zvernec, Albania
21 Jul – Back to Mine 528 Ibiza, Sant Antoni, Spain
31 Jul-1 Aug – Dreambeach Festival Malaga, Spain
6-10 Aug – Love International (Balance) The Garden Resort, Tisno, Croatia
6 Sep – Carl Cox [UNVRS] Sant Rafel, Ibiza, Spain
12 Sep – Malkin Bowl Vancouver, BC, Canada
25 Sep – Knockdown Center Maspeth, NY, USA
3 Oct – Silo 2nd Year Anniversary Dallas, TX, USA
Sasha – Solo Dates
17-26 Jul – Tomorrowland Boom, Belgium
14 Aug – Seebuhne Bremen, Germany
John Digweed – Solo Dates
26 Jun – Bedrock at Akasha San Carlos, Ibiza, Spain
25 Jul – SeaSeaClub Barcelona, Spain
21 Aug – Bolivar Beach Club Athens, Greece
29 Aug – Shake That Halm Plovdiv, Bulgaria
5 Sep – Carl Cox Open Air (support) Lisbon, Portugal
17 Sep – La Feria Santiago, Chile
19 Sep – Bedrock Buenos Aires, Argentina
13 Nov – Concorde 2 Brighton, UK
Sasha and John Digweed ‘Northern Exposure Redux’ Presave here
