That the British dance music legend Sasha would end up handling the score to a traveling “immersive exhibition celebrating the work of Leonardo Da Vinci” actually makes a decent amount of sense. If there is something in the DNA of the artist’s body of work, in their legendary DJ sets in tandem with John Digweed and their trance classics like “Xpander,” it is a certain sense of grandeur and, no doubt, immersion. Not every dance music DJ can do a 12-hour set and make it make narrative sense. Not every producer can figure out how to score a tech-forward installation dedicated to a master High Renaissance artist. In Sasha’s case, it helps to have been developing a toolkit for well over three decades.

Made with a studio team of Dave Gardner and Dennis White, Da Vinci Genius is the standalone product of Sasha’s work scoring an installation that first kicked off in Berlin before moving to Amsterdam, Miami, and Mumbai. I talked with the artist, who was spending some off-season time in Ibiza—a veteran dance music DJ move if there ever was one—about how this project came about, its challenges, and its rewards. We also got into those heady days in the late 90s when Sasha and Digweed were holding down a residency at the legendary Manhattan club Twilo—and conquering the New York dance music scene in the process. Read the interview and listen to Da Vinci Genius below.

So, where are you right now? 

Sasha: I'm in Ibiza. 

Oh, nice. This is technically off-season right now? 

Yeah, it's off-season here. It's lovely. It's quiet now. 

So do you spend a lot of time out there during the off season? 

I'm back and forth to London quite a lot. 

So are clubs totally shut down now? 

There's a couple of places that you can go out, but all the big clubs are shut right now. 

That must be such a different reality. It's like you're in a quiet vacation town or something. 

Yeah, it just feels pretty normal here compared to the chaos of the summer. 

So I'm really curious as to how this Da Vinci project came about. 

Well, I got approached to do the music about two and a half years ago. There were a lot of people involved on the business side of it, they all had different opinions about what the music should be. One of the main investors, an old friend of mine, he wanted me to do it, but eventually they decided to go with a big American pop producer. I won't name any names, but the idea was to juxtapose Leonardo's work with loads of really recognizable pop and rock and hip hop classics, but I think they very quickly realized the licensing of all that was very complicated, and I think they fell out with that producer. So they came back to me about two months before the show was opening in Berlin. They came back and said, “We don't have any music.” 

Wow.

So for the first show in Berlin, we licensed probably 40, 50 percent of the music. And then I wrote a lot of the supporting music around that. We had to do that very quickly, with very tight deadlines, and I also had to work a little bit in the dark. We had a very strict timeline that we were given by the creative agency, Flora and Fauna in Berlin, down to the second of when things happened and needed to change, and they gave us all these moodboards. Eventually, as they started getting the show together, they would send us little video clips. But a lot of the music I had to write was just to the idea of the sketch and to the storyboards. As we got closer to the show, we'd actually see how it was going to look. But I had no idea how it was going to feel in the room. 

It was the first thing I had mixed on Dolby Atmos. I worked with a company in London called Sonosphere, and a really amazingly talented Atmos engineer called Phil Wright. We went to his room at Metropolis Studios in London to mix these Atmos mixes, but when I took them to Berlin for the first time to test them out, they were so wild and over the top that I was like, Oh my god, is this going to work? This is about two weeks before the show's opening now, and everything sounded terrible, and I was panicking. So Phil from Sonosphere is like, Why don't we just mix the score in the room itself? So the room was set up for this amazing d&b system, 48 speakers, four subs, and then extra speakers in the cube itself, which is in the center of the room. Three, four days before the show was opening in Berlin, we were mixing the score down in the room. So it was all very tight, but it all came together beautifully. 

The Berlin show ran its course, they launched it in the middle of a COVID lockdown in January. Berlin's quite a seasonal town for tourists, and I think that they just made a mistake launching a little too early. It didn't last as long as we'd hoped it would last there. There was a bit of a break, and then they decided they were going to relaunch it in Amsterdam. With Amsterdam, they wanted to cut the show shorter, and they also wanted to re-edit the show. For example, in the Berlin show, The Last Supper came quite early in the show. And I felt that that was such an emotional peak. 

Well, it's The Last Supper. 

Yeah. It's also, the music [our studio team: Dave Gardner and Dennis White] put to it—this beautiful piece of music by Ed Alleyne Johnson, I wish I could say I'd written that piece, but that was something that we licensed—it's just so powerful listening to that music and seeing The Last Supper on such a scale and seeing the detail of Da Vinci's work in that very powerful piece. So for the Amsterdam show, we moved that much more towards the end of the show, built a new intro, and yeah, it was a fascinating project to work on. The Flora and Fauna guys, especially Lee in Berlin, were brilliant to work with. It was really exciting seeing it come to life and seeing my music in this format. 

What was your relationship with Da Vinci's work prior to the project and how did that change as you worked on it? 

I did a lot of reading up on Da Vinci and Leigh from Flora and Fauna was very well versed in all of all aspects of his life, she'd been studying him for years building up to this project, so I got a lot of history lessons throughout this process—bought some books on Da Vinci, did a lot of reading. I definitely learned a lot about him during this whole process, but prior to that, I didn't really know much about him other than his biggest hits, you know? 

I was curious about your work on Scene Delete. Did that sort of prepare you for this? 

Yeah, for sure. A lot of the music that ended up on Scene Delete was music that we pitched for film and TV stuff that didn't get used. We had all this music that we'd written, and we were like, What shall I do with this? It felt like a body of work. The way we approached that music, there was definitely a similarity with this. But there was something very special about this. We wanted it to have a classical feel to it, but we also wanted it to feel very modern and futuristic as well.

The way that Flora and Fauna have treated a lot of Da Vinci's work in the show, they've really messed with it digitally. The first time you see the Mona Lisa, it comes from thousands of tiny pixels all around the room, and they sort of fly into the center of this cube, and you suddenly see the Mona Lisa for the first time. It's a really powerful moment. So yeah, this juxtaposition of Da Vinci's work from centuries ago with his futuristic 21st century visuals was really, really exciting when I started to think about what we could do with the music. 

It's interesting that you worked on a lot of this stuff sort of removed, because I was wondering how you feel like this music works abstracted from the context of the installation. 

For Amsterdam, we had the hindsight of seeing the show in Berlin and knowing what things really worked. There were a couple of bits in the show that we thought, Oh, we could maybe do that better. Then of course, with the re-edits of the show and then shortening some of the pieces down, we knew what we were dealing with when it came to Amsterdam. Whether the music works on its own, it's tricky. I went to a blind playback thing last Tuesday at the Riverside in Hammersmith in London. Everyone came into the room and put on blackout masks. And we kind of listened to the album, and it was the first time I'd listened to it without referencing the visual side of it, you know? 

Yeah. 

So yeah, that was quite interesting. I do think it works. I think people can write their own visual story to it, because it's very cinematic and it's very thought-provoking, I think, the music. It definitely conjured up images for me, even though that music is so locked to the visual thing that we wrote them for. It was definitely an interesting experience listening to it in the dark like that. 

Are there any skills as a dance music producer that when you work on projects like this, you almost feel like you have to set aside? 

Well, the thing about this project is there were certain sections where I needed to put my DJ hat on. There were some sections where they wanted it to sound electronic and dance music-like and stuff. So it allowed me to wear a few different hats. For the other sections where it had to be more classical, I have to take my DJ hat off for sure. But it was really interesting to work on those sections. I think that the song that really encapsulates the whole process is “Portraits,” because the room itself at that point turns into all his famous portraits. So it starts off in a very kind of classical feel to the room and then everything starts to glitch out and the faces start to morph with these kind of futuristic androgynous faces. So, with that piece of music, we got to start with a classical chamber orchestra and a live cello which we recorded, and then by the end of the track, it sounds like an eight bit drum machine that's failing.

So what kind of stuff were you inspired by when you were working on this? 

I listened to a lot of film scores. Growing up listening to things like that Jeff Lynn War of the Worlds thing when we used to do long car journeys, which is really this dramatic kind of story told with this incredible music behind it—that came into my head. I think some early Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis score pieces of music came into my head, too. Then there were a lot of composers like Max Richter, people like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. The way that Hans Zimmer takes classical pieces of music and updates them in his scores—he did an amazing version of the Vaughan Williams piece at the end of Dunkirk—I think we were inspired a bit by that. The Oppenheimer movie came out in the middle of this and that score absolutely blew us away. So I think we were taking references from everywhere, really, and I think you kind of hear that in the score. 

Do you prefer that people listen to this as a continuous mix? 

I guess so. But we didn't write it as a continuous mix. So it's fine to dip in and out a bit, I think. But yeah, it's nice. We programmed it as a continuous mix after the fact when we wanted to do the release with Late Night Tales. We made that especially for the music release. The show was a continuous mix. I hope it makes sense both ways. 

Is there something sort of exciting about the fact that this music is living in all these different contexts? 

Yeah. Obviously, I wish everyone could see the show, because when you see the music and the visuals together, it's very powerful. But, you know, the show is only open in very few places. It just opened in Miami, just opened in Mumbai on Friday, and it's going to move around India. There's going to be some more locations. I hope it comes to the UK, because I really want my friends to see the whole experience. But the fact that the music kind of stands up on its own, I think is great. A lot more people are going to get to experience the music. 

As a DJ now, having done this, does this open your mind to some weird new possibilities for that form?

I've always sampled and played around with film scores and put them into the background of my music. I've always loved that kind of cinematic feel and tried to layer it into club tracks. That's something I always gravitate towards as well—those tracks that have that atmospheric kind of feel to them, and melodic feel, they've always resonated with me. 

A lot of your classic tracks, I assume some of those have been licensed for movies. 

Yeah. 

When you were making those in the 90s, was there any sort of thought that this was music that could maybe live outside of a club context? 

No, I'm not sure I ever thought that I would be getting involved in projects like this. It’s amazing. I've always been interested in maybe doing a film score, but I know it's very hard to get into that world unless you live in LA. I tried living in LA for a little bit and yeah, it wasn't a great fit for me personally. So, this is as close as I’ve come to writing a proper film score and it felt really good to do it and was a really exciting project. I hope it does lead on to other things. 

What about LA was difficult for you? 

It was just a difficult time personally and I’d been spending a lot of time in New York and I was very used to New York and I wasn't used to living in LA where we had to drive everywhere. I can't drive so that was a real pain in the arse. 

I lived in LA for a few years and I think I had a similar experience as you. 

Yeah, we moved quite far away from where the action was. It just wasn't a good fit at that time in our lives.

Speaking of New York—as a New York City resident and somebody who is in their 30s, I'm always a little curious about that sort of late 90s era of clubbing. Do you have any memories of Twilo? That era of New York, is that something you look back on fondly? 

It was such an exciting time for us, seeing that New York residency kick off and thousands of people queuing outside when we turned up at the club and people staying there until nine in the morning. It was an incredible time to DJ and the room at the time was the best sounding room in the world. The Phazon system in that room was just ridiculous. And yeah, John and I, our music just fit that system beautifully, that kind of dark progressive sound that we were playing at the time. It was a perfect marriage all around. Actually, New York was a great place to be at that time. They welcomed us with open arms at that point. 

What's the longest set you've ever played at Twilo? Can you remember? 

I think we’d play until midday. We did that a couple of times. So, you know, 12 hours is probably the longest. 

And is that something you're doing nowadays as much? 

No, no, especially not since COVID. Actually, I was doing a few real, real long haul sets just really building up to COVID, playing Fabric all night, which is seven or eight hours. I tried to do a really long set right coming out of COVID and I really struggled with it. I got six hours into it and I’m like, I'm done. But I kept on playing. I think right now I've been building myself up to longer sets. After that experience, I decided to play short sets for a little while. 

I had to find my feet again after COVID because I kind of stopped listening to club music for a while, because I just didn't have a reference point for it. Whenever I listen to club music, I'm always thinking about where it fits in my set, what I'm going to play, what venue I would play at. Then obviously as the COVID lockdown went longer and longer, I just kind of stopped listening to that sort of music and started listening to lots more experimental music and breakbeat stuff. And that's where the LUZoSCURA album came from—that side of things. So I really gravitated to more listening stuff. So when I went back out on the road, it definitely took me some time to find my feet musically and to get my groove back, but now I'm playing four or five hour sets and really enjoying them. 

Great. 

12 hours—I don't know if I could do that anymore.