Sabred

Our Friday night at The Golden Lion went very well. We, the admin team at The Flightpath Estate, had the idea a while ago that we should celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Sabresonic, the debut album by Sabres Of Paradise. We got Waka at The Golden Lion on board, approached Jagz Kooner, and decided we'd hold a Q&A followed by a Jagz DJ set. Jagz then said the third Sabre Of Paradise, Gary Burns, was happy to join us. I agreed to host the event, act as compere and ask the questions. We had two former- Sabres, a venue and a set of questions written by us all (with lots of input from Dr. Rob of the Ban Ban Ton Ton blog via email from his home in Japan). All we needed was a crowd. 

Thankfully a crowd turned up. The Q&A was filmed so at some point we'll be able to share that- I've seen a couple of clips and watching yourself and hearing your own voice is a bit uncomfortable. The Q&A session went really well, Jagz and Gary were lovely, engaging and chatty and happy to talk about anything and everything connected to Sabres Of Paradise, Andrew Weatherall, Sabresonic and various related topics. We talked for over an hour with questions coming from the audience as well as the ones we wrote. There are some Sabres related plans being hatched for next year and beyond which I can't spill the beans about at the moment but if you're a Sabres/ Andrew Weatherall fan, there's a lot to look forward to and eventually, hopefully, some exciting news. 

Some highlights of the talk...

Jagz and Gary were working together before meeting Andrew. They both lived in West London and were in the nascent acid house scene, Jagz was DJing and into production from a young age, building a home studio during his teenage years, and Gary could play anything- guitar, bass, melodica, keys, piano and whatever else he happened to pick up. They'd been working as The Aloof with Dean Thatcher and Rich Thair, releasing the Apocalypse Now! sampling 1990 classic Never Get Out Of The Boat. Jagz and Gary met Andrew in a club, at a point when he was a rising star in the DJ world and the veteran of producing Screamadelica and various era defining remixes. Andrew said they should work together and, as Jagz and Gary tell it, they both nodded and said yes, not expecting it to actually happen. They got the call the next day, Andrew asking them if they like to work on a remix of Jah Wobble and Sinead O'Connor he'd been asked to do. Visions Of You came out in 1992, Andrew, Jagz and Gary producing not just one remix but three, almost thirty minutes worth of music, half an album. 'We liked to give value for money'.

The working process in the studio was a topic of conversation. When they got commissioned to do a remix, a studio would be booked and if there was time left, they'd start to record their own music. This music, from a variety of sessions and studios in 1992 and 1993, is what became Sabresonic. Gary would play all the instruments. Jagz would be programming, sampling and arranging. Andrew would have the big picture ideas, the ears to pick out the parts to hone in on, the overall and specific vision for sounds, tracks, and eventually the album. Jagz and Gary would often be working with Andrew for a week, then they'd be off doing The Aloof or working with others, David Holmes for example. When they came back Andrew would have listened to all the tapes and have a clear plan about reworking tracks or moving onto new ones. Jagz described the studio set up, all three men with eight channels on the mixing desk, an instrument or sound on each channel. They'd set the tape rolling to record and then do the remix or track live, each one of them fading sliders in and out, mixing it live. When it was finished, they'd try another version, maybe dubbier, maybe more ambient, maybe faster or slower. As a result when they did remix work they often ended up with three or four versions, which would be submitted back to artists and record labels. Three remixes of Bjork's One Day, four versions for the Stereo MCs, and so on. 

We talked about the first Sabres release, their remix of Psychic TV's United, released as PT001, the first time the name was used. We talked about he origins of the name, either a 1960 book about pre- revolutionary Russia by Lesley Branch or a Haysi Fantaysi B-side- or both. PT001 is a record where Andrew did an abrupt about turn and presented a new sound (and not for the last time in his musical career). Gone were the Balearic sounds and tempos and pianos. PT001 was a dark, industrial techno remix. 

When the band signed to Warp, the label suggested an album might be a good idea. Jagz describes a shelf of DATs which Andrew went through and cherry picked eight tracks for what would become Sabresonic and we spent some time discussing individual tracks: the dark, thumping, moody opener Still Fighting (a remix of a remix of Primal Scream's Don't Fight It, Feel It); Smokebelch I (and of course Smokebelch II, not on Sabresonic but very much from that period); the fifteen minute spooked ambient sounds of Clock Factory; the dub infused RSD and Ano Electro. Jagz and Gary both said they'd had to spend some time recently listening to the album- neither had heard it in full for three decades, they were working so much and so fast that by the time tracks were finished, they simply moved onto new ones. They weren't even sure what the names were- all the track titles came from Andrew. The name Smokeblelch came from Andrew seeing some cooling towers as they passed Nottingham in a bus. The Sabresonic DATs, containing the released tracks and multiple other versions, sadly, all ended up in a skip. One of the Flightpath claims to have a cassette somewhere with three unreleased mixes of RSD on it- Jagz says this is very likely, they often recorded multiple mixes and versions. So, Mark- get up into that loft and get looking. 

We talked about the Beatless mix of Smokebelch, Gary playing the twinkling opening part on a guitar. We talked about David Holmes remix of Smokebelch, a remix Gary and Jagz did with David. We talked about the One Dove album, Morning Dove White, a record produced and remixed by all three Sabres, one which was delayed by the record label for a year who dithered about the mixes and spent time getting Stephen Hague to produced shinier, poppier versions. We talked about the mythical, never released, never even heard of Sabres remixes of Gary Clail. 

We talked about their recoding techniques and practices, Jagz and Gary recording the sounds of hitting a scaffolding pole with a spanner to get those metallic Sabres drum sounds and how Gary emptied a box of matches onto a metal tray and shook it, a sound that became a signature percussion sound on Smokebelch. Both men all the way through said how much fun they had, how much they did and how fairly they were treated by Andrew, who insisted everything was split three ways. 

We talked about the how Warp were keen for a Sabres Of Paradise album with guest vocalists and how they started to line some guests up. The album (if it had happened which it didn't- Andrew got the fear about the prospect of working with some of his heroes) would include Ice T, Tom Waits, Al Green and Bobby Gillespie. We talked about the remixes they turned down, at a time when record labels were paying huge amounts, £10, 000 to £15, 000, for a remix. The list of artists turned down includes both Madonna and U2.

We talked about the Sabres Of Paradise live band, a group that Andrew did not play on stage with- as a non- musician he would hang around the mixing desk smoking or stand in the crowd watching. Gary and Jagz recruited Rich Thair, Phil Mossman (later with LCD Soundsystem) and Nick Abnett (who also played with The Aloof) and set about learning how to play the songs live. They played only about a dozen gigs, some on a short tour of their own and then supporting Primal Scream on a UK tour. After the Q&A we played the only live recording of the Sabres live band that exists through the Lion's soundsystem, a set captured at Herbal Tea Party in Manchester by Rob Fletcher, a recording Jagz had never heard before. Jagz listened intently, smiling. 'We were pretty good', he said with a grin. That live set can be listened to here, the first thirty five minutes of the set being the live Sabres band before Andrew takes over on the decks. 

Jagz and Gary both said going on tour with Primal Scream in the mid 90s was exactly as you'd imagine it would be. Jagz told us that at the same time he took a phone call from Noel Gallagher, who wanted Sabres to go on the road with Oasis, at the exact same time as they were touring with Primal Scream. 

We talked about remixes, their favourites and the memorable ones. I asked how much of James remained on the four tracks that became Jam J. Both men smiled sheepishly. 'Not much'. Jam J is essentially a Sabres Of Paradise record. Gary said vocals got removed first. Jagz agreed, saying that with music that is essentially for dancing to, for creating a trance- like state, vocals often don't fit, apart from the odd repeated phrase. And in a re- appearance of the number twenty three in my life, Jagz recounted how the twenty third track on a mixing desk or tapes was the one that was never used

We talked about all of this and so much more. I'm sure there's loads I've missed out in this account- eventually when the film is edited, we'll be able to watch it all back. Both Jagz and Gary talked with so much fondness, love and respect for Andrew Weatherall, about how important he was, how inspiring he was to work with and how much he gave to them and about how brilliant Sabres Of Paradise had been. When I asked them what their favourite Sabres moment was, they both said without hesitation, 'all of it'. 

Here we all are, left to right, Baz (Flightpath Estate), me, Jagz (Sabre Of Paradise), Gary (Sabre Of Paradise), Martin (Flightpath Estate), Rob (Herbal Tea Party) and Waka (Golden Lion).

After a short break Jagz took over with a DJ set inspired by Sabresonic and the sounds of the period. The Sabres remix of  Red Snapper's Hot Flush and the recently posted here Leftfield remix of Renegade Soundwave both featured as did Andrew's remix of Soon by My Bloody Valentine and his remix of S'Express. Jagz finished, fittingly, with the David Holmes remix of Smokebelch, the crowd at the Lion, a pan- generational mix of eighteen to sixty- something year olds, a mess of sweaty and euphoric faces as the snares and pianos took us through to closing time. 

Smokebelch II (David Holmes Remix)

My final question of the Q&A had been a sort of homage to the Manchester acid house magazine Jockey Slut, which liked to ask DJs and musicians 'had they ever ridden a horse?'. It turns out Jagz has but Gary hasn't (Gary did say he been faced down by a few police horses when going to Chelsea in the 80s). It was decided by popular agreement that Andrew hadn't. A few hours after I asked this vital question, as the pub was being wound down for the evening and people were preparing to go home, a man arrived in the pub accompanied by a horse- the sort of thing that could only happen at The Golden Lion. 

Sabresonic At Thirty Tonight

Tonight at The Golden Lion in Todmorden, Sabresonic at 30, a celebration of Sabres of Paradise's 1993 album with a Q&A in the pub with not one but two former Sabres, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns, from 7.30pm (hosted by me, which would have had twenty three year old me in 1993 scratching his head and wondering how the fuck that turn of events came about). After the Q&A/ listening party, Jagz is DJing, playing a set partly inspired by the sounds that inspired Sabresonic. It should be quite a party, it's free and if you're in the vicinity it would be lovely to see you there. The Q&A is being filmed so there's a possibility I may share it here at some point, depending on how much I can bear to watch myself hosting an interview in front of a crowd. 

This was a Sabres track that didn't get a vinyl release until a re- issue in 2018. Lick Wid Nit Wit originally came out on Volume, a CD/ book/ magazine series. This is full of typically '93 Sabres sounds, dub techno pitched somewhere between the club and home with punchy kick drums, rimshots, rolling hand drums, acres of echo, a big dubby bassline and a melodica solo in the middle that nods towards Wilmot.

Lick Wid Nit Wit

Forty Five Minutes Of Renegade Soundwave

As promised last Sunday here's my forty five minute long Renegade Soundwave mix. Listening to them this week to pull this together was very enjoyable- they made many very good records, singles, remixes and albums, operating a little below the radar, but their sound would be picked up by acts that become much bigger and more successful (I'd be very surprised if both The Chemical Brothers and The Prodigy didn't own some RSW records). Formed in London in 1986 RSW were a three piece outfit, Gary Asquith, Carl Bonnie and Danny Briottet. Their early records were a collision of hip hop, industrial and sampling with a large side order of dub. Over time the rhythms and sounds of acid house worked their way to the fore along with the breakbeats of early 90s jungle. In 1990 they signed to Mute and released four albums before splitting up in 1995. Renegade Soundwave seem very much a London act, the pubs, clubs, people, sounds and substances of the city transmitted onto black plastic. 

This mix only scratches the surface and I left out the Leftfield remix of Renegade Soundwave, possibly (as discussed earlier this week) the greatest remix/ club track of all time. Given that it's been on this blog twice already in the last seven days, putting it into this selection felt gratuitous. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Renegade Soundwave

• Renegade Soundwave
• Women Respond To Bass (12" Vocal Mix)
• Biting My Nails (Bassnumb Chapter)
• Positive ID
• Brixton (Sabres Of Paradise remix)
• Thunder
• Brixton (Dub Mix)
• Probably A Robbery

Their title track, a 1994 single, is led by acoustic guitar and a vocal about coming back from a house party with crunchy drums and cavernous bass. The song also features the deadpan Teutonic sounding woman intoning their name- a two word snippet of song that often pops into my head and has me  repeating the words 'renegade soundwave' apropos of nothing.

Women Respond To Bass was a 1992 single with a pilfered BMW logo on the disc and eye catching sleeve. Scientific veracity of the statement in song's title may be required- happily the bassline of this song is so good that everyone and anyone should respond to it. The woman saying 'renegade soundwave' appears in this song too. 

Biting My Nails came out in 1988, heavy and industrial, the sound of RSW before acid house hit them. 

Positive ID is one of my favourite RSW songs, a catchy and funky and released in an array of versions and mixes. The version here is the Radio Mix and it's a song which really should have got them some radio play. 

Sabres Of Paradise remixed Brixton, a 1995 12" single, Weatherall, Kooner and Burns going for the megathump with a high pitched top note and a single line of vocal, 'I'm checking out her rhythms'. The Dub Mix is by RSW. 

Thunder came out in 1990, sampling Perry Como and an early 90s classic with its sternum hitting bassline, crackles of guitar, enormous drums and wobbling synth sounds. In fact looking back now, its as good as anything else that came out in that year- and 1990 was by no means a fallow year for dance music. 

Probably A Robbery was the only RSW single that cracked the charts, a number 38 hit in January 1990. Rico Conning and Mute's Daniel Miller mixed it- the B-side Ozone Breakdown should have featured in this mix too. The vocal is very funny, a tongue in cheek celebration of a life of crime- 'Because its probably a robbery/ A bit of skullduggery/ The funniest thing I wanted to sing/ But the notes wouldn't come my way'. They made a video for Probably A Robbery too... 

Forty Five Minutes Of Leftfield

I was listening to Leftism recently, Leftfield's 1995 debut album, an album that takes in sublime ambient house (Melt, Song Of Life), bass heavy dub techno pounders (Release The Pressure, Afro- Left) and eye catching guest vocalists (John Lydon on Open Up, Toni Halliday on Original). It was this Top of The Pops repeat that had me digging Leftism out, a 1995 appearance with a blonde Toni moonlighting from Curve and looking every inch the goth- dance star...

The back to back pairing of Melt and Song Of Life, tracks three and four, were the two that struck me the most this time around, a gorgeous way to spend ten minutes. The closing 21st Century Poem also had me appreciating it anew. I began a Sunday forty minute Leftfield mix and immediately had the problem of too many songs, many that are eight, nine or ten minutes long plus a load of remixes. In the end I've gone mainly for mid- 90s Leftfield, Neil Barnes and Paul Daley's glory years, tracks from subsequent albums/ versions of the group left for another time. 

Forty Five Minutes Of Leftfield

• Fanfare Of Life
• Release The Pressure (Adrian Sherwood Mix)
• Renegade Soundwave (The Leftfield Remix)
• Nothing (Extended Version)
• Melt
• Release The Pressure (The Rough Dub)
• Original
• Open Up (I Hate Pink Floyd Mix)

Fanfare of Life is a version of Song Of Life, Leftfield's fourth single, out in 1992, a masterful piece of optimistic ambient house. The Fanfare version also showed up on Cafe Del Mar Volumen Uno, a definitive mid- 90s compilation. There are a pair of Underworld remixes either of which probably could and should have featured on this mix. 

Release The Pressure appears twice, once in its 2019 re- released Adrian Sherwood remix version. You can never have too much Sherwood. The Rough Dub came out on 12" in 1992, Neil and Paul with Earl Sixteen on vox, a dark and deep, epic thumper.  

Renegade Soundwave were a London three piece, much underrated and unappreciated in some ways. Their singles  Women Respond To Bass, The Phantom, Positive ID, Probably A Robbery, Renegade Soundwave and Brixton are all worth spending time with as are their albums, the 1990 In Dub especially. This Leftfield remix of their title track came out in 1994.

Sandals were a beat poetry/ progressive house group who I thought were great, briefly. Several singles and an album with Paul Daley and Neil Barnes producing, mixing and remixing. Nothing was a 1992 single, with the whispered line 'Old man, what have you done?' just as pertinent now as it was then. There are old men all round the globe making the world a worse place aren't there?

'The film starts/ the film ends', Toni Halliday says as Leftfield's heavy bass and beats stomp on around her on Original. Toni was the vocalist in Curve, a duo with Dean Garcia who made a run of electronic rock/ goth dance singles- they've been featured recently over at The Vinyl Villain. While the dance music guest vocalist thing quickly became standard Leftfield's collaborations with Toni and John Lydon were attention grabbing in the mid- 90s. They put John Lydon back on the cover of the music press, somewhere he hadn't been for some time. Lydon's vocal on Open Up is the stuff of legend, a reborn, angry and exhilarating vocal from the former PiL/ Pistol, stridently taking down Hollywood and the film industry. The I Hate Pink Floyd Mix is by Sabres Of Paradise slowing the song down to an industrial dub grind, a PiL influenced remix by Weatherall, Kooner and Burns. 

Smokebelch

Smokebelch, the Sabres Of Paradise track that will most likely outlive all their others turns thirty today. The 12" single was released on 20th September 1993. The fact that this is three full decades ago will make some of us feel very old. In some ways the intervening thirty years have gone in the blink of an eye but in some ways the release of this record and the world as it was then do feel a very long time ago. I was twenty three when it came out (there's that number again), just starting my teacher training course. Looking back at who and where I was then and who and where I am now it does feel like thirty years. At the same time I can clearly recall buying the 12" in HMV on Market Street, a small quantity of them in the rack at the back of the shop. I can clearly remember taking it back to the flat I shared in Altrincham and playing it over and over. It's remained close to me ever since- in December 2021 we played the Beatless mix at Isaac's funeral, at the graveside. 

In tribute to the record and to celebrate its thirtieth birthday today I thought I'd sequence the various version together, fifty minutes of Smokebelch. It's not exhaustive- the Flute Mix is missing (originally appearing on the B-side of the David Holmes remix 12" and I don't have it digitally) and so is the later, Two Lone Swordsmen version done in memory of Ali Cooke for the Cut The Crap three CD compilation.  

Sabres Of Paradise- Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns- based the track on LB Bad's New Age Of Faith, a 1989 release written by Lamont Booker. Keyboards on Smokebelch were played by Les Jumeaux, a duo also known as In The Nursery who remixed Sabres' Haunted Dancehall in 1994. The painting on the sleeve was by Richard Sen, graffiti artist, raver and DJ/ producer in his own right. The names came from Andrew noticing smoke pouring from cooling towers (someone,somewhere on the internet had a fuller version of this anecdote but I can't find it at the moment). 

The Beatless version came out later on in 1993, a 7" single given away with initial quantities of the album Sabresonic (also thirty this year, in a couple of months time. I'll come back to that nearer the time). It is four minutes of ambient gorgeousness, the twinkling melody notes pulled out and dancing like the light from the stars. 

Smokebelch I also turned up on Sabresonic, a echo- laden rhythmic monster, kick drum banging away with metallic cymbals and distorted bassline. Darker and with some '93 Weatherall techno menace, the light only appears halfway through with the alternating long synth notes. Meanwhile the drums power onwards. 

The  Smokebelch 12" single, thirty today as I keep saying, came with two versions- the Entry and Exit versions, each coming in at nearly twelve minutes. The two mixes contain those same sounds put together in a different order- the ticking, matchbox percussion, that warm bassline, the squelches, rumbling timpani, synth strings, the dancing woodblock topline, the pianos and synths, snares and thumping kick drum. Nothing fades in or out slowly, everything is lightswitch style, turned on and off, in and out, the different elements layered perfectly. We noticed over the months that followed that it worked in multiple situations- it was euphoric and ecstatic in clubs and in a crowd and could be reflective and more melancholic played at home or in a lower mood. The Exit version is pacier and taken at a greater speed. 

The David Holmes remix came out a week later clad in a yellow sleeve rather than the red one, a fuller, more intense version made for mutating dancefloors into seething messes, an acid squiggle added to it, whistles, rattling marching band snares, breakdowns, more piano and the majorettes carrying us down the road for several minutes at the end. 

Smokebelches

• Smokebelch (Beatless Mix)
• Smokebelch I
• Smokebelch II (Entry)
• Smokebelch II (Exit)
• Smokebelch II (David Holmes Mix)

Weatherall Remix Friday Four

In 1992 Andrew Weatherall made the move from being the solo remixer and DJ, ably assisted by Hugo Nicolson on many of his genre- busting, name- making early remixes to becoming part of a group. In part this was a desire to head away from the light, away from the Balearic and indie- dance scenes and mine something darker and deeper and less obvious. Rumours in the NME (often placed there by his friend Sherman who edited the dance music page) suggested Weatherall was forming a new band- Sabres Of Paradise- with a record label of the same name and the similarly named Sabresonic club night under a railway arch at Crucifix Lane, London. Hugo had become a part of Primal Scream's onstage set up and Andrew had begun working with Gary Burns and Jagz Kooner. The trio would become Sabres Of Paradise, putting out several key singles- Smokebelch, Theme, Wilmot- and two albums- Sabresonic and Haunted Dancehall before Andrew shifted things around again and formed Two Lone Swordsmen with Keith Tenniswood. 

Somewhat overlooked in the Weatherall/ Sabres back catalogue of releases and remixes is the debut release on Andrew's Sabres Of Paradise label, the 12" known as listed as PT001 in the Sabres catalogue numbering system. Discogs has this listed as a 1993 release but several people online recently have said it came out in autumn '92 (at least in white label version). The first run of twelves was on red vinyl (rare) with a black vinyl run following (less rare). It seems that PT001 came out before both Secret Knowledge's Ooh Baby and Pleasure by SYT (I appreciate this is probably unimportant to most people, unless you are compiling a comprehensive, definitive discography of Andrew Weatherall releases- hi Martin).

PT001 is a remix, or total reconstruction, of Throbbing Gristle's United (a 7" single, 1978). There are two versions, the A-side eleven minutes of 1992 Weatherall, the perfect marriage of the newest sounds and styles spliced with his influences, in this case the music of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV. Repetitive bleeps, tribal drums, samples screeching, metallic cymbal crashes and then a crunching, thumping four- four kick.  Three and a half minutes in the TG synth riff surfaces, loops round and then the tribal thumping returns. A piano run appears at five minutes thirty, giving that hands- in- the- air moment and then a proto- Sabres bassline joins in. Everything begins to pile back in again for the run in, building in layers and intensity, tempos and noises colliding. Thirty years old and still capable of causing strobe light flashbacks and goose bumps.

United Mix 1

United Mix 2 is shorter, only brief five minutes and forty seven seconds, starting with the tsk tsk tsk of a hi- hat and then the drums, all about percussion and rhythm, harder and tougher. Eventually sirens arrive, wailing away on top, a techno alarm call from the early 90s.

United Mix 2

Forty Five Minutes Of Sabres Of Paradise

The day after the night before. I wrote this in advance so have no idea how yesterday's DJ extravaganza at The Golden Lion went- let's assume for the sake of argument that it was a massive success, that the tune selection and mixing was flawless, that we pitched the music and the crowd perfectly throughout the afternoon and evening and set it up beautifully for Justin Robertson to come in and take us all higher. 

I thought seeing as today is till part of the AW60 celebrations and there's plenty to see and enjoy at The Golden Lion today that today's mix should be Weatherall related but also a little downtempo and chilled to ease any sore heads and bodies into the day. This is the result, a forty five minutes Sabres Of Paradise mix, some of the more ambient, downtempo, dubbier and beatific tracks from the Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns back catalogue.

Forty Five Minutes Of Sabres Of Paradise

• Jacob Street 7AM
• Siege Refrain
• Return Of Carter
• R.S.D.
• Theme 4
• Edge 6
• Flight Path Estate
• Haunted Dancehall (Performed By In The Nursery)
• Smokebelch II (Beatless Mix)
• Chapel Street 9AM

The bookends of this mix, Jacob Street and Chapel Street, are both from the 1994 Haunted Dancehall album, a Sabres masterclass. Ambient tracks to listen to as the city wakes, Jacob Street is serene and wobbly, while Chapel Street's synths sound like seagulls and the shimmering haze they conjure is quite beautiful. Theme 4, a short dub noise interlude on the album is a version of the single Theme, also from 1994. Flight Path Estate comes from Haunted Dancehall too. 

Siege Refrain is a short experiment is delay and distortion, calmed ambient sound with some a little edge. It was track three on the Wilmot CD single.

Return Of Carter and Edge 6 were the twin B-sides from Theme, two of my favourite Sabres dub outings, wonderfully early 90s revisioning of the King Tubby sound. 

R.S.D. appeared on the 1993 album Sabresonic, propulsive dub techno. The initials stand for Red Stripe Dubs, an advertising tie in brokered by Mark who DJed last night as one of the Flightpath Estate DJs. He swears somewhere he has a cassette with three different versions of this track but alas to date he has been unable to put his hands on it. 

In The Nursery's modern classical cover version of Haunted Dancehall's title track came as part of a triple vinyl remix set, on 7", 10" and 12" along with remixes by Depth Charge, The Chemical Brothers, Nightmares On Wax and LFO. It's a very beautiful few minutes, a new version rather than a remix. Weirdly the BBC's plans for the death of a monarch that were drawn up decades ago stipulated that it would be the only music to be played on Radio One in the event of the Queen dying. It was broadcast repeatedly in the immediate aftermath of the death of Diana back in 1997. I'm not sure it's what anyone involved in creating it intended. 

Smokebelch II (Beatless Mix) is a gorgeous ambient version of the Sabres 12" single from 1993, Smokebelch II. It's become an ambient/ chill out classic and been subjected to advertising mobile phones in the past but that shouldn't blind you to its beauty. It was originally available as a one sided 7" single with limited copies of Haunted Dancehall. We played it at the graveside at Isaac's funeral in December 2021 and I can still listen to it now, so that's something. 

Forty Minutes Of One Dove

After last week's Dot Allison mix I thought I should go back to the source and do a One Dove mix. One Dove's album Morning Dove White was finally released in October 1993 after a year of hold ups and wranglings about whose mixes and which versions should be on the final record, Stephen Hague's radio friendly sheen or Andrew Weatherall's lengthy dubby productions. We all know what history tells us about those kind of arguments. I bought it and played it a lot, an album that can transport me back to the flat I lived in then with a friend and the times we spent listening to it, the smell and hum of the gas fire, the ashtray filling up with cigarette butts. It sound-tracked our post- club arrivals back home, the winter of 1993- 94, a couple of break ups, us making our way into adult jobs, all that kind of stuff. I've listened to it ever since, an album that continues to give alternately shivers and a warm glow. Weatherall's production, on the back of Screamadelica, is expansive, restless, superbly chilled out but warped too and oddly timeless. The moody/ elegiac songs of Dot Allison, Jim McKinven and Ian Carmichael were clearly good to start with but once Weatherall and Hugo Nicolson got into the studio and began working on them they went somewhere else, sprinkled with the magic dust of the early 90s. Stephen Hague's mixes are possibly a little too shiny in places (and kept mainly for the CD version) but the vinyl is an album to rank alongside the best of the 90s. I once said here, many years ago, that it was brilliant but felt slightly flawed, like there was something missing. I'm not sure what that was or what I meant now. The album's cast included Weatherall's Sabres Of Paradise mates Gary Burns and Jagz Kooner, Jah Wobble's bass on There Goes The Cure, Phil Mossman (Sabres guitarist and future member of LCD Soundsystem) and Primal Scream's Andrew Innes. It's never been re- issued on vinyl. Copies on Discogs are currently starting at £80. Mine is most definitely not for sale. 

Putting together a One Dove mix without just sequencing a bunch of songs from Morning Dove White pointed me towards the remixes and B-sides. I couldn't find room on this mix for either Weatherall's majestic dubbed out odyssey, Breakdown (Squire Black Dove Rides Out) or their spaced out cover of Jolene- a second forty minute mix should happen at some point- and there are several Sabres remixes of Transient Truth not included below, the mighty Old Toys and Old Toys Dub are both stunners. The ten minute Guitar Paradise version of White Love looks like a glaring omission too. And if Fallen feels little like it was just tacked onto the end, then that's because it was. I just couldn't not include it in one version or another.

Forty Minutes Of One Dove

• Why Don't You Take Me
• Skanga
• Transient Truth (Squelch Mix)
• Transient Truth (Death Of A Disco Dancer)
• Why Don't You Take Me (Underworld Remix)
• Fallen (Nancy And Lee Mix) 7" Edit

Why Don't You Take Me is from Morning Dove White and was a single in December 1993, the now London Records owned Boy's Own label putting it out as the third single from the album and hoping for a hit. The Glaswegian dub reggae of Skanga was a B-side (along with Jolene, not included here). 

Transient Truth was also from Morning Dove White and released as an official 12" (with the Old Toys mixes) and a white label promo, both in 1992. The white label contained four Sabres Of Paradise remixes of the song, the two included here plus the Paradise Mix and the Sabres Fuzz Dub. I've no idea if the Death Of A Disco Dancer remix is a reference to The Smiths song of the same name. 

Underworld's remixes of Why Don't You Take Me are both up there with their best from the period, released on double blue vinyl along with a Secret Knowledge remix. Underworld's Up  2 Down remix is a long thumper. The one I've included here is dubbed out Underworld style and is magnificent. 

Fallen is where the One Dove story starts, Dot's breathless vocal and the ambient/ dub/ acid house music initially built around a Supertramp sample which led to legal action and the offending harmonica  being removed. Weatherall's remix for the 12" came with the title Nancy And Lee Mix, which sent many of us scurrying back to our parent's record collections looking for Sinatra and Hazlewood albums and singles. The version here is an edited one from a  February1992 7" single and I include just because it's such a great song it can even survive having four minutes chopped off it. 

Looking at all of the tracks I've left off this I think part two may have to come sooner rather than later. 

Mountain Of One/ Slow Electric

Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns were the two members of Sabres Of Paradise who weren't Andrew Weatherall. Re- united in tragic circumstances at Lord Sabre's funeral this year they agreed to work together again. The first fruits of this were released yesterday, a cinematic, stately, ambient track with softly played piano dedicated to the man himself. Mountain Of One by Stray Harmonix is available at Bandcamp. 

Back in the early 90s DJ mix tapes did a roaring trade in record shops, clubby boutiques, Afflecks Palace type places and outlets that sold poppers. Andrew was in the habit of running off limited quantities of mixes he'd done himself and handing them out to the first 50 punters through the door, a habit he kept up through Sabresonic, Blood Sugar, The Double Gone Chapel (moving to CDs) and A Love From Outer Space. This one, two sides of a C90 tape was given away in 1993 titled Sabresonic Slow Electric Vol. 1. At some point it became re- christened as Massive Mellow Mix, a most un- Weatherall name, but actually quite fitting given the music contained within. Twenty- seven years after Lord Sabre put it together it still sounds superb, the art of the DJ perfectly demonstrated. 

Given the technical limitations of tape as a source material it sounds really good sonically. A timeless, chilled, trippy, electronic adventure- soothing science fiction soul (or something like that). 

Sabresonic Slow Electric Vol. 1

Tracklist

• Anaconda "Ideas for Virtual Reality" (aka Hole In One "Spiritual Ideas for Virtual Reality")
• The Primitive Painter "Levitation"
• Dubtribe Sound System "Sunshine's Theme"
• State of Flux "Mercury"
• The Primitive Painter "Cathedral"
• Ebi "Chuu"
• Some Other People "Astralise" (Dark Globe Remix)
• The Primitive Painter "Invisible Landscapes"
• Sqvid "Emprisoning Sounds on a Piece of Wax"
• The Keyprocessor "Feary Tales"
• State of Flux "The News"
• Alec Empire & Ian Pooley "Untitled"
• Ebi "Sou"

Monday Long Song

This is Albert Bridge House in Manchester, an eighteen storey office building with lower level ones around it- check out the wave roof on the building at the fore in my photo, overlooking the River Irwell. It's housed various government departments over the years and has been described as 'the best modern building in Manchester' and 'an outstanding example of what good proportions and straightforward design'. Obviously it is currently under threat of demolition. Manchester City Council bend over backwards for anyone with money who want to demolish anything that is 'outdated' or 'ugly' and replace them with enormous glass towers that offer 'mixed use' development (this is usually un- affordable housing plus restaurants and/or a huge hotel). Recent reports have detailed how the planning committee has been meeting behind closed doors, as a response to Covid, and has been waving through developments that would have been held up to greater scrutiny otherwise. I've said before, I don't think that cities can or should be preserved in aspic and that cities are organic and change, buildings are put up, taken down, replaced and demolished, but the rate of change, kowtowing to private enterprise and lack of coherence in Manchester is out of control.

Here's some totally unconnected music for the Monday long song slot. In 1993 a single was released by the Peace Together project, a charity aimed at raising funds for cross- community activities for young people in Northern Ireland. The Peace Together single, Be Still, involved a huge cast of musicians and characters including Sinead O'Connor, Jah Wobble, Clive Langer, Nanci Griffiths, Feargal Sharkey, Peter Gabriel and Therapy? The CD single had remixes of Be Still by Robin Guthire with Liz Fraser on vocals and this epic Sabres Of Paradise remix.

Be Still (Sabres Of Paradise Remix)

This is one of the lost/overlooked Weatherall remixes from the 1990s, a twelve minute tour de force of Gaelic dub, tin whistles, echoing rimshots, bodhran, descending bass from Wobble, waves of synth and long, sustained keyboard chords and some of those trademark Sabres production touches from Gary Burns and Jagz Kooner. This remix often gets missed out of the round ups and retrospectives and it's a mystery to me why it does because it's Sabres Of Paradise at their extended dubby best.

Isolation Mix Nine- Weatherdub

It's difficult to know where we are with isolation any more. Many people seem to be acting like it's all over, parks are full of groups of people and social distancing is a thing of last month. The daily death toll doesn't seem to be diminishing that much and in the north west we currently have the highest regional infection and death rate in the country. As the government brings about the end of lockdown in favour of the economy and to distract from the horrors of their mismanagement of the entire period, some people I'm sure will stay in and stay distanced. In our household we are shielding so our lives will carry on as before for the moment. God only knows where we go from here.

Isolation Mix 9 came partly from a comment I made at The Flightpath Estate, an Andrew Weatherall Facebook group where I promised a Weatherdub mix, and partly from Isolation Mix 6 three weeks ago, an hour of dub that had several of Lord Sabre's fingerprints on it. There's some crossover between that mix and this one but I chose the other Steve Mason remix and dropped the Sabres Of Paradise dub of Regret by New Order just for variety's sake. This mix, an hour and a quarter of dub business from Andrew Weatherall as a solo artist, aided and abetted by Nina Walsh, as a remixer, as a Sabre Of Paradise and as an Asphodell, spans thirty years taking in songs from 1990 and 2020. There's loads more that could have gone in but I thought I'd keep it compact.

Sabres Of Paradise: Ysaebud (From The Vaults)

Sabres Of Paradise: Return of Carter

Steve Mason: Boys Outside (Andrew Weatherall Dub 1)

Andrew Weatherall: Unknown Plunderer

Saint Etienne: Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Andrew Weatherall Mix)

Sabres Of Paradise: Edge 6

Andrew Weatherall: End Times Sound

Meatraffle: Meatraffle On The Moon (Andrew Weatherall Dub)

Richard Sen: Songs Of Pressure (The Asphodells Remix)

Andrew Weatherall: Kiyadub 45

Lark: Can I Colour In Your Hair? (Andrew Weatherall Version)

Planet 4 Folk Quartet: Message To Crommie

Roooksack Boogie, Belching Smoke

Back in the early 90s this was how Andrew Weatherall appeared in an article in The Face, his long Screamadelica- era hair cut short and a sort of punk /rockabilly/techno look that seemed to be more where things were going. A bit tougher and with an edge. The Sabres Of Paradise released their Sabresonic album in 1993, a record taking in lengthy ambient tracks that took up an entire side of vinyl (Clock Factory) and Still Fighting, an extension of Primal Scream's Don't Fight It, Feel It that the Scream passed on as being too techno but which opened Sabresonic with intent, the thud of the kick drum setting out their stall. There was sublime dub techno (RSD, Red Stripe Dub) and two takes on fairly abstract club music (Ano Electro Andante and Ano Electro Allegro). There was also Smokebelch I, a pacey leftfield tune with a synth intro and reverb laden sounds bouncing around. The rattling hi- hat and then later on the strings set the heart racing and take me straight back to then.

Smokebelch I

Darren Price, DJ and friend of Weatherall put this tribute on the internet yesterday, a re-working of Smokebelch II, The Belching Smoke Salute, a version that finds new beauty in old grooves and lasts for a perfect eight minutes and eight seconds.



From 1993 to 2019 and a pair of new- to- the- internet Andrew Weatherall mixes, a pair in two halves, an hour each and sent to Mr John Minney by Lord Sabre himself in June 2019. Perfectly paced, throbbing, chuggy delights, Arabic influences and ALFOS style disco- house, percussion breakdowns, robotic voices and sections of swooshing, uplifting dance music. The DJ sets and Sabres sounds of 1993 are present here and there, echoing drum sounds, rattling snares, acidic squiggles and pumping basslines, the forward momentum although the tempos are definitely pitched down. Plenty to enjoy in both of these, especially the space age, cosmische stuff that's going on.

Part One...



And part two...

Island Earth Is Happening Place

In the early 90s Sandals, a four piece from South London, signed to Acid Jazz and put out a series of 12" singles and an album called Rite To Silence. They came up in conversation in a social media post a few days ago and I thought it was time to put some of their music back up here (the last time they featured was back in 2012).

Sandals came together from the club scene and various record stalls and clothes shops, eventually rehearsing in the storage room of a book/record/clothing shop they ran in London's Trocadero. They mashed together a heady stew of beatnik spoken word poetry, soul, funk and jazz, lots of percussion and bongos, some heavy grooves and early 90s clubland sounds.

Debut single Nothing, from 1992, was produced by Leftfield and predates the trip hop sound by a year or two. Samples of voices, boom- boom- bap drums and whispered/stoned street poetry.

Nothing (Extended Version)

In the same year they put out a second 12" single, produced this time by Gary Burns and Jagz Kooner of Sabres Of Paradise, with a more progressive house sound. It was remixed by DSS (David Holmes and Ashley Beedle). It opens with Country Joe's Woodstock crowd participation exercise, 'Give me an F! Give me a U! Give me a C! Give me a K! What's that spell? What;s that spell?' The techno drums come in and Derek Delves begins singing/chanting about the mess we're in, war, the environment, general madness and bad times. It couldn't be more relevant today, the best part of three decades later, if it tried. This being a 1992 progressive house remix it goes on for twelve minutes, never really letting up. Exhilarating stuff.

We Wanna Live (DSS Remix)

Also from 1992 was this one, A Profound Gas, which I played loads at the time and still sounds great today. Flutes, guitars, pan pipes, chunky drums, production from Leftfield and more beatnik poetry with some memorable lines and imagery.

A Profound Gas (Vocal Mix)

The group disbanded in 1996 having had a second album rejected by London Records. It was eventually released in 2009 in Japan. A copy came my way recently and when I've fully had a chance to listen to it, more Sandals will be coming this way.

Transient Truth

Dot Allison was here yesterday, providing the vocals on a King Of Woolworths song. That song was posted as part of a long discussion at a One Dove forum/Facebook group about the Sabres Of Paradise mixes of their 1992 dub- house masterpiece Transient Truth (with group member and founding member of One Dove Ian Carmichael chipping in). The 12" release came with two remixes, the Old Toys Mix and the Old Toys Dub, both credited to Andrew Weatherall, Gary Burns and Jagz Kooner (collectively Sabres Of Paradise). The first keeps some of Dot's vocal and picks up the pace halfway though, the second more abstract and dubbier. Both are pretty high tempo and fairly full on reworkings.

Transient Truth (Old Toys Mix)

Transient Truth (Old Toys Dub)

There was a second vinyl release, a promo 12" in a plain sleeve, collecting four further remixes. I hope I've got all these labelled correctly- all the mixes are here but I apologise in advance if any are wrongly titled or the links are mixed up. Inevitably there's a lot of repetition and parts that appear and re-appear (the synth part, various drum and percussion sounds, Dot's vocals, the bassline)- but they're all worthy of release and it's clear to see why Weatherall wanted the four on the promo out as well as the Old Toys versions. The other four mixes are the Paradise Mix, the Sabres Fuzz Dub, the Squelch Mix and the Death Of A disco Dancer Mix.

The Paradise Mix starts slow, then builds with that Sabres timbale sound, fragments of Dot whispering 'listen', lots of percussion and some melodica as a top line. At ten minutes plus it's the longest of the remixes.

Transient Truth (Paradise Mix)

The Fuzz Dub is thumpier and sparser with an intermittent buzzy, fuzz line, giving it its name.

Transient Truth (Sabres Fuzz Dub)

The Squelch mix is pretty far gone, noises flipping between the speakers, a bit of Dot, reverb heavy timbale, a long, slower trip, more melodica- dubbed out dub- house, a dub of a dub.

Transient Truth (Squelch Mix)

The final one starts with a kick drum and clatters away with the familiar synth riff fading in and out and the descending bass part to the fore. I don't know why it's called Death Of A Disco Dancer Mix- I can't find any obvious reference to The Smiths song of the same name.

Transient Truth (Death Of A Disco Dancer Mix)

Stick all of them on a cd or a playlist and lose yourself in a slice of 1992. After a while, listening to them one after the other, a zen-like calm kicks in, time and space slip away, transience becomes the natural state. Or something. Even if a One Dove/Sabres inspired transcendence is not achieved, it's a nice way to spend forty-five minutes.

Conquistador

Through the magic of social media I spent twelve minutes last night listening to this unexpectedly. It popped up in my timeline and now I'm passing it on again.

Conquistador (Sabres Of Paradise Mix 3)

This is a big file and the file host will probably say there was a problem playing it as a result but it should be fine to download.

The bit at seven minutes with the wire stretching noises followed by the increased tempo sounded particularly good. As was often the way in 1993 Weatherall, Burns and Kooner turned in three remixes of Conquistador for the 12". I've posted Mix 1 before back in 2012 so here's the other one.

Conquistador (Sabres Of Paradise Mix 2)

Shorter, chunky progressive house and with squiggly bits but liable to get you going if you like this kind of thing.

Espiritu were Vanessa Quinones and Taplin from Frazier Chorus, signed to Heavenly (a label that continues to put out top quality music to this day). Espiritu combined house with Latin beats and put out two albums and multiple singles. It became a one woman show after a while and more recently Vanessa has formed a band called Vanessa And The Os with James Iha (x-Smashing Pumpkins) and more recently still has been making French pop as Allez Pop.

At roughly the same time this popped up in my timeline too.

This is a picture of Jagz Kooner's Roland TR 808 which he is/was selling. In the accompanying blurb Jagz wrote that this is the actual machine that many Sabres Of Paradise songs and recordings were done using as well as some of Primal Scream's recordings (Swastika Eyes, some of XTRMNTR, some of Evil Heat). That's an actual piece of musical history. I considered having a whip round and getting part shares in it but couldn't raise the funds in time (offers above £3750).

Swordplay

I'm just going to return to Sabres Of Paradise if that's alright. The live set I posted on Monday was pretty well received and has been flying around other sites too. I pulled out some Sabres cds to play in the car this week and that included two cd singles, Theme and Wilmot, both released in 1994. I didn't buy cds then, being an uptight vinyl purist. Cds were clearly an attempt by The Man to destroy vinyl, resell everyone their record collections, make vast profits at our expense and stomp all over our culture, our entire way of life. Something like that. Some years later I softened my approach after cds began to infiltrate my household via the front covers of music magazines- a gateway drug to a shiny, silver state of mind. I succumbed. Years after that ebay began to offer opportunities to fill in gaps caused by my vinyl purism and at rock bottom prices. Hence, at some point I bought the cd singles of Theme and Wilmot for a couple of quid. If you don't know Theme or Wilmot (and I'm sure most of you do) then please go  and listen to them.Theme is a massive, crunchy, swirling thing with hip hop drums, a horn fanfare and spiralling guitars and can make you feel like you're in a film. Wilmot is a delicious, delirious skank. Coming hard on the heels of 1993's Smokebelch they make up a brilliant threesome demonstrating the outer limits of Weatherall, Koons, and Burns' imaginations. The vinyl releases had B-sides- Theme came with dubby Return Of Carter and Edge 6, both later compiled on Sabresonic II and both much loved round here. Wilmot was backed by Rumble Summons, eight minutes of a man kicking a bin. But, to get to the point, the cd singles had extra B-sides, filling in a little more of the Sabres Of Paradise story. Theme's fourth track was Theme III, a deconstruction or version that sounded a little like a Metal Box track played really slowly. Wilmot had a Scruff remix and also Siege Refrain, an instrument or something totally distorted playing a little riff with some drums so laden with echo they sound like they're coming from the bottom of a swimming pool.

Theme III

Siege Refrain

The Hawaiian Death Stomp

I found a box of cd recently, cds I made myself between 2006 and 2010. I used to regularly burn compilation cds and make handwritten or typed tracklists and then print covers for them. Is that sad? I'm surely not the only person who did it. Am I? Anyway, one of them was a bunch early 90s progressive dance tracks and in the middle was this by Four Boy One Girl Action, David Homes, Kris Needs, Jags Kooner and Gary Burns being the four boys. It was the first release on Holmes' Exploding Plastic Inevitable record label in 1993. The One Girl was Patti Smith, sampling her 'I haven't fucked much with the past but I've fucked plenty with the future' line. Strangely, in all the time I've been doing this blog, this is Patti Smith's first appearance here. The Hawaiian Death Stomp is long, pounding, percussive and pretty essential.

The Hawaiian Death Stomp

An Exciting Tale Of Defiance, Fury And Romance

Someone asked me if I had digital copies of these three songs. I do. So here they are. Sabres of Paradise in session for John Peel, March 13th 1993, recorded at the Sabres basecamp and not released anywhere officially. These rips came from the much missed Ripped In Glasgow website. The audio quality is much better than rips from radio to cassette to mp3 sound like you'd think they should be. The three tunes are all excellent and the recording session dates from after the Haunted Dancehall album so are pretty much the last thing the band did before Weatherall moved on to Two Lone Swordsmen.

Stanshall's Lament

Blackfriar's Sunday

Duke On Berwick

Wilmoth

Some of you will love this 1994 Sabres Of Paradise single, all slink and skank and lust for life. The vocals were by Wonder, who was one half of yesterday's postees Secret Knowledge. At Cream nightclub, Liverpool, one night in 1994 a scheduled dj appearance in the backroom by Mr Weatherall failed to materialise- transport problems I think. The resident dj and co-owner Darren Hughes stepped up to the decks and played an advance copy of Wilmot. A whole room of people went from dancing to house/techno to doing the reggae dance. The video has Sabres men Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns, and a troupe of majorettes dancing through London at dawn. Magic.



I found out recently that this 1931 calypso song, Black But Sweet, by Wilmoth Houdini provided a good part of the inspiration. Listen to the horn line...



Wilmoth Houdini also went under the names Frederick Wilmoth Hendricks, Edgar Leon Sinclair and King Houdini. He emigrated from Trinidad to New York, was a major player on the calypso scene in the 30s and 40s and lived there until his death in 1977.

Johnny Favourite

Drew's post on Friday of David Holmes' My Mate Paul put me in mind of his epic debut single (Holmes' not Drew's), Johnny Favourite, a fifteen minute progressive house stomp (done with Sabresmen Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns).

Johnny Favourite is named after a missing singer in the 1987 film Angel Heart. In the film Mickey Rourke plays Harry Angel, a private detective hired by Louis Cypher (geddit), to find the singer. In the Deep South he runs into all kinds of trouble- Robert de Niro peeling hard-boiled eggs, southern horror, the beautiful Lisa Bonet and some very messy voodoo...



I haven't seen Angel Heart for years. I remember it as having atmosphere and tension. I'd like to see if it still stands up. Holmes' track does.