Sabresonic At Thirty

Big news announcement! Sit down, hold tight. Sabres Of Paradise, the early 90s dub techno trio of Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns, released their album Sabresonic thirty years ago (the exact release date is a matter of some debate but we're settling on 11th September 1993).

Over at The Flightpath Estate, the Andrew Weatherall Facebook group we set up nine years ago, the admin team (Martin, Dan, Mark, Baz and me) have had some discussions about things that have seemed ridiculous to us and have then actually started to take shape and happen. One of these is under wraps for the moment but the other is taking place three weeks today. Martin had the idea of holding a Sabresonic 30th birthday listening party at The Golden Lion in Todmorden and of inviting Jagz Kooner to do a Q&A session with him DJing after. We knocked it around a bit, a few calls were made and amazingly the Sabresonic 30th Anniversary party is happening at The Golden Lion on Friday 3rd  November. The event is free. Jagz is going to have a chat/ answer a few questions about Sabres of Paradise, the making of the album Sabresonic, working with Andrew, the Sabres remixes from the period and whatever else comes up, we'll listen to the music and open it up to the floor. The Q&A part of the evening is going to be hosted by someone new to the David Frost/ Graham Norton role (that would be me). Fingers crossed eh?

Back in 1994 Sabres remixed James and the results came out as a two track, half hour epic titled Jam J. On Andrew's residency at Kiss FM he played an early version/ remix of what became Jam J. This was never released but has been ripped from that Kiss FM broadcast, a Sabres remix of James' Honest Joe. It contains all sorts of signature Sabres sounds, the Weatherall/ Kooner/ Burns team working their magic with seven minutes of 1993 four- four dub techno, Mr Booth et al bent into all kind of new shapes (with a Kiss FM ident annoyingly appearing in the middle).  

Honest Joe (Unreleased Sabres Of Paradise Remix from Kiss FM Radio Mix)

November at The Golden Lion looks increasingly like the month of dreams. The night after the Sabresonic 30th party Red Snapper are playing. The following Friday David Holmes is DJing, a launchpad for his forthcoming album Blind On A Galloping Horse. On Sunday 19th November Manchester's Aficionado team of Jason Boardman and Moonboots host at 25th anniversary bash. That's just four of the highlights. David Holmes' recent single Necessary Genius was followed two weeks ago by a remix package, David and Raven Violet's song reworked by Skymas, Phil Keiran, Decius, Robin Wylie and Lovefingers. They've taken some time to worm their way into me but now all the different versions offer up something new and different. Lovefingers slows the song down, sticks a big, reverb heavy piano part into it and samples snippets of the people in David and Raven's list (a bit of Loaded, a brief snippet of Sinead, some Morricone). Decius do their Decius thing, chopping up a bit of vocal, raisng the tempo and making it very intense. Phil Kieran stretches the song out, bringing the synths to the fore and eventually hitting the button marked 'massive I Feel Love sequencer'. Find them all here. 

Monday's Long Song

Out last Friday and the title track from his album The Strand Cinema this is Phil Keiran's latest release- a tribute to an art deco cinema in Belfast. The Strand Cinema is six minutes and forty seconds of gorgeous instrumental music with echoes of the kosmsiche groups of early 70s West Germany, rippling synths and cinematic strings with layers of cello and violin, that make The Strand Cinema an immersive and emotive listen. The album can be bought here. 

NYE: A Mix For Dancing

New Year's Eve- I'm not sure what we're going to do tonight. New Year's Eve is a strange night at the best of times (unless you're young and in a club where all that happens is that the countdown to midnight is a brief interruption to a night of dancing). The reflective, verging on maudlin, aspects of it are too easily summoned at the moment but celebrating it feels odd too. Caught in no man's land.

But, still, Happy New Year to everyone who comes here for the music and the words, thank you for your comments and support, it means a lot. I hope you're having a good time tonight whether you're choosing to do something or nothing. See you all in 2023 for more of the same. 

This is a mix I put together of tracks from 2022, made for dancing to. It's what I'd want to hear as the clock ticked towards midnight, if happened to find myself in a sweaty basement with a good sound system and a strobe light tonight- you never know, it could happen. Sean Johnston's work features heavily, turning up on four of the tracks. There are a couple of transitions where things are a little skewwhiff (one of them skewwhiff in a way I quite like, the beats and noises piling up messily and then clearing) and the BPMs may be a little out but I think the track selection is good enough. A bunch of dance records sequenced together for an hour and a quarter, with a slow spaced out ambient start, a dubby ending and plenty of dancers in between. Happy new year.

NYE 2022 Dance Mix

• Space Ghost: 4 AM
• Long Range Desert Group: Adjustment Notice
• Rude Audio: Big Heat
• The Summerisle Six: This Is Something (Dub Mix)
• Peak High: Was That All It Was (Hardway Bros Bleep Dub)
• David Holmes: It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love (Hardway Bros Remix)
• Unloved: Turn Of The Screw (Erol Alkan Rework)
• The Orielles: Darkened Corners (Eyes Of Others Remix)
• Phil Kieran and Green Velvet: Enjoy The Day (Hardway Bros Meet Monkton Downtown Remix)
• Matt Gunn: Disko Drohne
• Cantoma ft. Quinn Lamont Luke: Alive (Conrad's Vacant Lot Remix)
• 10:40: Hawaii (Big Wave Dub)

Enjoy The Day

This came out last Friday- Enjoy The Day (Hardway Bros Meets Monkton Downtown Remix)- a four way collaboration that sounds like it should be filling floors at discerning discotheques near you as the December party season gets underway. The original track is by Phil Kieran and Green Velvet and here is remixed by the combined force of Hardway Bros and Monkton. The deep, dark groove and hedonistic vocal are one thing but the Italo piano that comes in is something else entirely, a gloriously happy/ sad, bittersweet refrain. The 808 rattles away, there is acres of lovely echo and space and the longer it plays, the better it gets. A pulsing, squiggly acid line pushes its way to the fore and rhythm gets tougher. Buy here and then rinse and repeat, as they say.  

Forty Five Minutes Of Homer

David Holmes is in a purple patch, two singles of wonky indie dance brilliance (Hope Is The Last Thing To Die in 2021 and It's Over, If We Run If Of Love this year, both with Raven Violet on vocals) with a follow up 7" out on Hoga Nord later this year, two Unloved albums mining that 60s Now! sound and another due in the autumn, not to mention some stunning remixes. Throwing all of these together with a couple of choice songs from his past that fit in with those seemed an obvious Sunday half hour mix. The main problem was what to leave out- in the end there were several Unloved songs, some of the remixes of the two recent singles, some songs from his solo albums and a smattering of Andrew Weatherall remixes (of I Heard Wonders and Unloved's Devils Angels) that I couldn't fit in so a Holmes Mix Two may have to follow at some point.

Forty Five Minutes Of David Holmes

• David Holmes: Hope Is The Last Thing To Die
• David Holmes: I Heard Wonders
• David Holmes: 69 Police
• Unloved: When A Woman Is Around
• Phil Kieran: Think Too Much (Unloved Remix)
• The Vendetta Suite: Purple Haze, Yellow Sunrise (David Holmes Remix)
• Unloved: Mother's Been A Bad Girl
• David Holmes and Steve Jones: The Reiki Healer From County Down
• David Holmes: It's Over, If We Run Out Of Love

 

Monday's Long Song

David Holmes' Unloved project is a 60s via the 21st century sound, L.A. girl groups and Jack Nitzsche filtered through his thirty year DJ/ production/ soundtrack career. To date Unloved are two albums in, several singles and remixes, and a large part of the soundtrack of BBC's Killing Eve. There's a nine track remix e.p. available with reworkings of the song Why Not by Gwenno, Phil Keiran, Hardway Bros and The Vendetta Suite plus this, almost nine minutes of throb, echo and mystery via Richard Sen (there's a remix and a dub version).



Phil Kieran's remix is shorter, just shy of six minutes, but it's a blast, a funked up 60s spy film bassline, some horns, clattering percussion and a mad, driving energy. Occasionally it surfaces, vocals drifting in, before everything submits again to the pulse of the rhythm.



The Hardway Bros, Vendetta Suite and Gwenno remixes, it goes without saying, are all excellent too. Buy the whole package at Bandcamp. There's a limited four track vinyl release too which may well be sold out.

Find Love

Do you like Andrew Weatherall remixes? Good, so do I. Here's a new one...



That's a floaty, repetitive and spacey version, not an unpleasant experience at all. There's a pretty cosmic Roman Flugel remix too if you want to double your fun...