Dance music royalty Sasha returns to Night Time Stories with his latest project – the score to ‘Da Vinci Genius’ – an immersive exhibition celebrating the work of Leonardo Da Vinci, the great Italian Renaissance polymath. His 2016 release ‘Scene Delete’ on the same label, was Sasha as you’ve never heard him before; an imaginary movie score, and an adventurous left-turn for the veteran DJ/producer, who rarely rests on his laurels. Fast forward to 2024, and we have Sasha delving into classical music, combined with the deep sonics for which he’s renowned. He used his experience as an electronic music producer – and movie buff – to re-frame his work, enlisting ‘Scene Delete’ veterans Dennis White, Dave Gardner and Barry Jamieson to assist in this complex task. “I’ve never written music for a project like this before, so it was really exciting and interesting to work with the show’s designers Flora and Fauna Visions (FFV) on this incredible brief. The show is a past-present-future peek into Da Vinci’s mind, presenting a lot of his iconic work, using computers to play around with it, and creating a stunning visual experience. We needed the music to support and enhance that. We wanted to capture some of the atmosphere of those incredible film scores we love, and the modern electronic composers we were inspired by. People like Nils Frahm, Jon Hopkins, Steve Reich, even Vangelis and Jean Michel Jarre. We were inspired by Kubrick’s approach to using classical music in his films, but also the modern film composers like Hans Zimmer, who use classical movements with amazing electronic sounds around them. We also managed to find some beautiful medieval choral music of LDV’s era from a Renaissance composer Josquin des Pres, which inspired some of the more ambient sections. When we started the score we hadn’t seen any of the visual, so had to be guided by FFV’s mood boards. It was a different, challenging way of working, but I hope people think it’s one of the most accomplished things we’ve ever done.” Sasha 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 more familiar sounds. With ‘Da Vinci Genius’, it feels like Sasha is very much at home in unfamiliar territory – reveling in the simply beautiful and undeniably moving music he has created. He recounts, “I really wanted to take something classical but flip it on its head, make it modern. 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 out of thousands of digital fragments, and some of his other famous portraits melt into electronic visual glitches. I wanted to frame the show with a classical mood, but then allow electronics to pulse behind it. It was a wonderful collaboration with FFV and I’ve loved doing this.”