Kasbï’s (@sachakasbi) “Astral” arrives on Blue Iris Records as a melodic and progressive house release shaped by organic textures, emotional movement, and the global influences that have become central to the label’s identity. The track places Kasbï in the foreground while also pointing back to the larger world he and his brother Giannni have built around Blue Iris: a label, event platform, and creative community rooted in travel, musicality, and human connection.
Born Sacha Kasbi, Kasbï grew up around electronic music and funk before moving from guitar into drums, percussion, keyboards, and eventually electronic production. That background comes through in “Astral,” which blends melodic house, progressive house, afro-tech, indie dance, and new wave influences into a record that feels designed for movement without losing its emotional pull.
The interview below widens that release into a conversation about history.
Kasbï and Giannni talk about digging for records in Paris, learning from vinyl shops like Techno Import, avoiding the easy pull of commercial selections, and treating DJs as living archives. For a label like Blue Iris, whose identity depends on connecting artists, places, scenes, and sound, the point is not only to release new music.
It is to keep older musical stories alive while adding something personal to the chain.
Interview With Kasbï and Giannni
When did you first start digging into the history of the genres you play?
About twelve years ago, when we started crate digging in the record stores on Rue des Taillandiers in Paris. We spent countless hours at Techno Import searching for records, discovering new artists, and building our musical culture one vinyl at a time. That period really shaped the way we listen to and understand electronic music today.
How do you balance honoring the tradition and history of the music on your USBs while still pushing your own sound forward?
Our goal has always been to create a journey that makes people dance while introducing them to music they may not have heard before. Over the years, we’ve naturally included more of our own productions in our sets. Since our tracks genuinely reflect our artistic identity, they blend seamlessly with the music we love to play while allowing us to contribute something personal to the story.
Are there moments where you’ve been involved with something that felt bigger than just music and actually felt like you were really pushing the culture of club music forward in a positive direction?
Absolutely.
There have been many moments when it would have been easy to play more commercial music just to get a quick reaction from the crowd. Instead, we’ve always chosen to stay true to our artistic identity and trust the audience that came to discover something new. Helping people connect with music they might never have heard otherwise is one of the most rewarding parts of what we do.
What role do you think DJs should play in preserving cultural memory of what’s come before?
Anyone can play the Beatport Top 100.
For us, the real joy comes from introducing people to hidden gems—tracks with only a few thousand streams, records discovered in a small vinyl shop, or music from an emerging artist. Watching people connect with those tracks, seeing them pull out their phones to Shazam them, is one of the most satisfying feelings as a DJ.
We believe DJs have a responsibility not only to entertain but also to share music that deserves to be heard.
Do you feel like enough people in the scene are doing the work to understand where the music on their sticks comes from?
We’ve always been fascinated by the history of music, from classical and blues to funk, disco, and electronic music. Fortunately, there are many talented DJs today who share that same curiosity and respect for where the music comes from.
Whenever someone asks us for a track ID, we like to tell them more than just the title. We enjoy sharing the story behind the record, where it came from, who produced it, and the context that makes it special. Keeping those stories alive is just as important as playing the music itself.
Closing Thoughts From The Editor
Kasbï’s answers work because they treat history as something DJs actively carry, not something that sits behind the music in a detached academic way. Their story begins in record shops on Rue des Taillandiers, but it does not stop at nostalgia for vinyl culture. The real point is that digging gave them a way to listen. It trained them to hear records as part of a lineage, not just as files that can be ranked by chart position or algorithmic convenience.
That connects closely with my interview with Alice Youngling on house history, club culture, and DJs as living archives. Youngling spoke about discovering house music’s roots through The Underground Is Massive and learning to understand the communities behind the sound. Kasbï and Gianni arrive at a similar idea from the record store side.
The act of digging becomes a cultural education, and the DJ’s job becomes more than selecting whatever is already working.
That also links naturally to my interview with Floyd Lavine on storytelling, Cocoon, and his global path. Floyd’s perspective framed electronic music as shaped by movement across places, cultures, and rooms rather than by a single fixed genre lane. Blue Iris Records seems to operate with a related instinct. Ibiza, St. Barths, Saint-Tropez, Mykonos, Burning Man, Paris record stores, and the label’s international showcases all feed into the same identity, but the music still needs enough taste to keep those influences from becoming scenery.
The “Beatport Top 100” line is also worth holding on to because it outlines the easier path without overcomplicating the issue. Playing known records will usually work to some degree. The harder and more meaningful task is giving a room something it does not yet know it wants.
That point sits close to my Heaven INC. interview on building DJ sets like shared stories. Heaven INC. spoke about direction, crowd response, and letting the room help shape the set. Kasbï and Giannni add another layer: the set should also carry records whose stories deserve to keep moving.
The bigger takeaway is that Kasbï and Giannni still see DJing as a form of cultural memory because it means the DJ should know enough to make the present feel connected to something deeper than the current chart cycle. “Astral” moves the Blue Iris sound forward, but the philosophy around it points backward and outward at the same time: into record shops, older genres, overlooked tracks, and the stories that make a track worth sharing.
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
