Lucky Breaks: How your favourite DJ made it big

Sasha had fallen on hard time and was close to giving up on the DJ dream when a chance brush with a Haçienda resident got him back on track.

He summarised the encounter for Ask Audio: “In the really early days gigs dried up a bit, and I was contemplating having to get a real job. Luckily I started to get booked again. I had a knack of being in the right place at the right time. I ended up moving into a block of flats where one of the DJs from the Haçienda lived, Jon DaSilva. He took me under his wing and I started DJing with him. Then I started to build a name for myself. It all came from there really.”

Svengalisghost never intended to release his music, but when his friend, legendary underground New York figure Porkchop, handed some CDs to Ron Morelli who saw the havoc they wreaked on the dancefloor a relationship with L.I.E.S began.

Svengalisghost’s laptop breaking down and hard drive being wiped nearly ended things before they’d even began, but Ron managed to take the only three 320kbps tracks from the CDs (most were 128kpbs) and mastered them for release.

Svengalisghost told us the story: “Producing was a way for me to release stress. Working 14 hours hanging lights as a lighting tech was brutal and I found music more immediate than stretching a canvas to paint. I never expected to have anything released. It was just a way to share ideas with Jon [aka Porkchop].

“[After my laptop broke] I had stopped making music because my experience with the computer seemed limiting and I really didn't have resources for gear until Ron approached me about a release and magically the gear started to gravitate towards me.

“[Without Ron Morelli getting a hold of my music] I wouldn't be here probably as no one other than Jon and Ron had really heard my tracks. After the release Ron asked me if I would be interested in touring in Europe and gave me a few contacts and setup a few shows for us. I got addicted to Europe and decided to stay. It's kind of bizarre as when he first approached me I was reluctant to release the tracks as I didn't think they were good.”

Throwing Shade was all set up for a career working in human rights law when she packed it in, for the time being at least, to pursue music full time after the opportunity arose.

She picked out the moments she landed her NTS residency and linked up with Ninja Tune for forthcoming EP ‘House Of Silk’ as backed by good fortune, explaining: “I got my NTS show back in May 2013. The way I got it was serendipitous because I went on Thristian's Dark & Love Global Roots show as a guest and the station manager was listening at the same time. He really liked it and called up as soon as we went off air and asked 'Who's that girl? I want to offer her her own show.'

“The Ninja Tune thing again was just another weird coincidence. One time when I was doing my NTS show the producer was this guy called Ollie who works at Ninja Tune, and we were just chatting in the studio and he said 'If you ever have any new music you want to send over you should totally do that,' so when I had a bunch of new tracks that I was sending out to new labels that had all been interested I thought I should send it to him to. Then he passed it on to Adrian who's the head of A&R at Ninja Tune and, as it turns out, was a big fan of my music already.”

[Photo: Cat Stevens]

Patrick Hinton is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow him on Twitter here