SASHA @ STAR HALL

His emotion-charged sets can make the hairs on your arms stand on end, his Northern Exposure partnership with John Digweed changed the course of electronic dance music, and he’s as close to a rock star as a DJ could possibly get.

Of course, we’re talking about Sasha. While his contemporaries were mixing cheesy US house in the late 1980s, the Welshman created a more uplifting, anthemic style that laid acapella vocals over deep Italian house – a breakthrough that helped elevate him to hero status in clubs worldwide.

Becoming famous in the 1990s for residencies at the Hacienda and most notably Renaissance, Sasha helped create a new movement in UK dance music, a style that was generally labeled “progressive trance” but borrowed equally from house and breakbeat. It was a wide-ranging, seamlessly mixed approach that took Sasha to the biggest clubs around the world – including in Hong Kong, where he last appeared in 2002.

But now the master is returning. This Chinese New Year, the man who has always stayed one step ahead of technology and musical trends will help Hong Kong usher in the Year of the Tiger with an exclusive live set at Star Hall, Hitec. If you were there back in the halycon days of dance music – or ever wished that you were – you won’t want to miss this one.