As an object, Northern Exposure is a milestone of the format’s rapid institutionalization in the mid 1990s. In the UK, the legal mix CD market had begun in earnest in 1992 with Journeys by DJ, which tapped artists like Billy Nasty, Judge Jules, Danny Rampling, and Paul Oakenfold to relay a British take on house music. Mixmag Live! got its start the same year with cassettes featuring side-long sets from pairs of DJs—Carl Cox on one side and Dave Seaman on the other; Grooverider backed by Justin Robertson—and eventually graduated to single-artist showcases.
Sasha and Digweed both played individual roles in this development: Sasha contributed a side to Mixmag Live Volume III in 1992, and Digweed released Journeys by DJ 04: Silky Mix in 1994. But it was their first collaboration, the 1994 mix Renaissance: The Mix Collection, that gave the format a crucial boost in both popularity and ambition. The three-disc set, a calling card for the duo’s residency at the Midlands nightclub of the same name, was one of the first mix CDs to be spread across multiple discs, given deluxe packaging, and marketed “like a major-label release,” as Sasha recalled in 2019. It ended up selling more than 100,000 copies, becoming the first mix compilation to be certified gold in the UK.
By the time they released Renaissance, Sasha and Digweed were two of the most popular DJs in the UK. (The cover of a 1994 issue of Mixmag asked: “SASHA—son of god?”) Sasha, born Alexander Coe in Bangor, Wales, discovered acid house at the Haçienda and cut his teeth DJing at clubs and raves across the North of England and the Midlands. Digweed came up in the southern English coastal town of Hastings, where he booked 2000-strong raves called Storm! on the city pier. By 1993, both were playing at the recently opened Renaissance club in the Midlands town of Mansfield, where they were developing the hallmarks of their shared sound: long, gradual blends; exquisitely controlled tension; hypnotic, shapeshifting waves of rhythm blending American house grooves with dub effects, churning percussion, and steely, futuristic synths.
Renaissance shows early glimmers of the duo’s linear M.O., but, from today’s vantage point, it feels caught between the rough-around-the-edges euphoria of early rave music—pistoning pianos, diva vocals, cut-up hip-house chants, piledriving drums, chainsaw synths—and the headier atmospheres of progressive house. It’s peppered with lapel-grabbing vocal hooks and occasionally schmaltzy toplines that tilt toward the sentimental excesses of the soon-to-be-supersized trance scene; the DJs’ blends strive for seamlessness, but not all are in key.
After the success of Renaissance, Sasha and Digweed approached Northern Exposure with greater intention. One notable innovation was the decision to use the set’s two discs to showcase two distinct, if complementary, moods—a sort of yin-yang division that would eventually become commonplace, if not downright cliché, for mix CDs. While the second disc doubles down on the dark, percussive essence of their playing, the first disc was imagined as a home-listening affair.
