Still Fighting

Sabres Of Paradise took the stage in Fabric at 9pm on Thursday night to sirens and red spotlights, the first date they've played in 30 years, and a re- union that is missing the main man, Andrew Weatherall. Jagz Kooner, red shirt, black suit and tie, is behind a large console. To his right Gary Burns and a bank of keyboards and synths and beyond him Phil Mossman, guitar and bowler hat. To Jagz's left, Rich Thair with drums, congas, cymbals, black hat and Palestinian flag on his chest and next to him Nick Abnett, black suit, bass guitar, sharp haircut. They look ready to go. The trip hop drums of Tow Truck rumble in and we're off, Haunted Dancehall reborn for 2025, the track being reconstructed in front of us, transforming into the Depth Charge remix (another missing man tonight- J Saul Kane died last year). 

Tow Truck (Depth Charge Mix II)

Fabric is in Farringdon, a cavernous venue with several rooms all below ground level and a warren of connecting corridors and staircases. The room Sabres are playing is low ceilinged and dark, lit only by red lights, and feels industrial- it's perfect for the bass- led, swampy Sabres sound, the tracks filling the space. The room is packed with fans, friends and family, everyone willing Sabres on. Three tracks in Theme snaps into place, the horn sample and massive drums bouncing off the walls and Phil Mossman's gnarly guitar cutting through. Theme takes us into the bumpy, rough edged dub of Edge 6, these three decade old tracks sounding electrified and alive, not exactly the same as the recorded versions but retooled and remade on stage. 

Having felt their way in, the band and the room step up a gear with Wilmot, Nick Abnett's bassline working its magic and the horn riff snaking around. Jagz at the centre and always busy, his Cheshire Cat grin showing how much they're enjoying it. After Wilmot the chimes of the Beatless version of Smokebelch ring out, twinkling synths and piano. I have a long and intimate history with this track- we played it at the graveside at Isaac's funeral- and I'm sure I'm not the only one with tears in their eyes as Gary and Jagz play their blissed out ambient serenade. 

The second half of the gig is a stunner, energy levels raised, crowd and band in sync. The Ballad Of Nicky Maguire comes next- acid squiggles and burps, chunky drums, metallic dub clanks and eventually those long, melancholy chords, a track that as much as any seemed like the soundtrack to the James Woodbourne noir novel excerpts from Haunted Dancehall's inner sleeve (James Woodbourne is yet another Andrew Weatherall pseudonym and Nicky Maguire's identity is a closely guarded secret). They play Clock Factory, the fifteen minute long industrial ambient from 1994's Sabresonic, all clicks and whirs, and follow it with Ano Electro, more metallic drums and huge distorted bass and then they're done, to huge applause and waves of cheers and whoops. Sabres Of Paradise come back quickly, no messing about and launch into Sabresonic's opening track, the hard edged, acid house and thumping kick drums of Still Fighting, Jagz dropping in the whistling synth sound from Still Fighting's source material, Primal Scream's Don't Fight It, Feel It. It's is fast and frenetic, physical, techno you can feel, and it cuts deep. 

Then they push everything a notch higher with the return of Smokebelch, this time the David Holmes remix (Holmes is in the DJ booth watching having warmed the crowd up with ninety minutes of dubby sounds). Holmes's remix, released a week after the original 12" (itself a version of LB Bad's New Age Of Faith) did what seemed impossible- it made Smokebelch peakier, upping the ante. Jagz and Gary, Rich, Nick and Phil, are at the centre of a storm in Fabric now, the crowd going nuts as the drum troupe drums rattle around the room, the whistles and piano ride around on top and that huge acid line runs through the centre of it. I have a thirty second clip of it, the piano runs and drums, red lights and a sea of hands in the air- mayhem, everyone dancing and lost in the music, a thirty year gap vanished, Smokebelch very much in the present. 

It's also very poignant. Andrew Weatherall's not here and he started this whole thing, Sabres a result of a late night conversation with Jagz and Gary in a club in 1992. I'm sure I'm not the only one who, as the five man Sabres live band gather centre stage and take their bow, can imagine Lord Sabre himself, somewhere in the shadows at the side of the stage, nodding and smiling, giving them his blessing as The Sabres Of Paradise ship sails on to Sydney Opera House and then to Spain. 

The gig at Fabric coincided with an announcement that Warp are re- pressing the long out of print pair of Sabres Of Paradise albums, Sabresonic and Haunted Dancehall, remastered and available either red or black vinyl. 

In September 2023 I put together a mix made up of various versions of Smokebelch to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the 12" release, five versions of the track sequenced together for extended enjoyment. It seems the right time to repost it. 

Smokebelches

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

J Saul Kane

My social media timelines were full on Monday night and Tuesday with tributes to J Saul Kane who has died aged just fifty five. He'd become quite reclusive in recent years and had more or less given up making music, concentrating on photography instead, but in the 1990s he was one of the founding fathers of what became known as trip hop. His music was dusty, atmospheric and beat heavy, sampled spaghetti Westerns, martial arts films and Brazilian football commentators and he was a DJ who knew how to fill and move a dancefloor, as J Saul Kane, Depth Charge and The Octagon Man. He was a pioneer and trailblazer. Trip hop seems reductive somehow- this is cinematic electronic funk a weird hybrid of hip hop and dance music (that's pretty much trip hop I guess but J Saul Kane's music never became dinner party music which was the fate of a lot of 90s trip hop). 

In 1994 I bought Shaolin Buddha Finger by Depth Charge, having heard the title track somewhere in Manchester after dark. A dark, swirling piece of electronic breakbeat with advice about how to attack a man using the titular digit, layers of samples and a massive buzzing bassline. The album Nine Deadly Venoms followed, an essential mid- 90s album and then the Legend Of The Golden Snake EP. 

Shaolin Buddha Finger

He was still producing great records into the 2000s. This one came out in 2004, a filthy, juddering blitz of beats, samples and undulating bass. 

Hi Voltage Man

Back in 1995 J Saul was one of a select group of artists who got to remix The Sabres Of Paradise. There were a pair of Depth Charge remixes of Tow Truck (from Haunted Dancehall). The Sabres original was an alternative James Bond theme if 007 had come from East London and sold second hand motors rather than lived life as an international spy. J Saul broke it down even further, a grinding bass heavy swim through the murk. 

Tow Truck (Depth Charge Mix II)

His music chimed with the trip hop artists and with the world of The Beastie Boys and Grand Royale and his influence on labels like Mo Wax and Ninja Tune was enormous. His passing is very sad news, especially having died so young. RIP J Saul Kane. 

The Return Of The Sabres Of Paradise

There was a flurry of excitement in the middle of last week, not to mention some 'I didn't expect to see that happening' style comments, when the line up for Primavera 2025 was announced (Primavera is an annual festival held in Barcelona). Tucked away with little fanfare in the list of artists on the right hand side of the poster is the name The Sabres Of Paradise.

Jagz Kooner soon confirmed via social media that it was indeed correct, The Sabres Of Paradise are reforming as a live act. A year ago next week me and my friends in The Flightpath Estate held an evening at The Golden Lion in Todmorden to mark the 30th anniversary of the release of Sabresonic, the first Sabres Of Paradise album. We had Jagz and Gary Burns fielding questions (by me!) and talking at length about their time as Sabres with Andrew Weatherall, how they met Andrew, how Sabres worked, what reocrding sessions were like, who did what, how remixes were done, all the fine detail that a small but committed audience wanted. After the Q&A was over we played Rob Fletcher's recording of Sabres playing live at Herbal Tea Party in Manchester in 1994, the only live recording of the group in existence. Jagz stood by the speaker listening and nodding. 'We sounded pretty good', he said. Later on Jagz DJed and he was still around when Red Snapper played the following night. At some point over the weekend Jagz told me and a few others that he was thinking about getting Sabres back together as a live band, do some gigs, draw a line under the Sabres story, and do it respectfully, in Andrew's memory. He also swore us to secrecy. 

The live band version of Sabres played twenty two gigs in 1994, a few one offs starting in London, then Sugar Sweet in Belfast, Sabresonic, Megadog and a tour in May 1994, Herbal in December 1994 and then a tour supporting Primal Scream (and then a few in Japan). Andrew was on stage with the band for the first few gigs but stepped down after the Belfast gig, saying that he felt like a fraud standing behind a keyboard. He much preferred to stand in the crowd and watch the band play the songs he, Jagz and Gary wrote, with Weatherall DJ sets before and after. 

The revived Sabres Of Paradise will be very much the musicians who played those gigs in 1994. That live band line up was Jagz and Gary, Rich Thair on drums, Phil Mossman on guitar (who would later join LCD Soundsystem) and Nick Abnett on bass. Nick established a key part of the visual identity of Sabres on stage, bass slung low, cropped hair and long leather trenchcoat. Jagz has got this line up back together and next June Primavera Sound will be graced at some point with the resurrection of Sabres Of Paradise as a live band. Jagz recently found the original sampler that he used when Sabres played live. He switched it on and it still holds within its memory banks the stems to some of those Sabres Of Paradise songs including Smokebelch and Edge 6. 

Clearly, Sabres aren't going to get together and rehearse just for one gig- I think I'm allowed to say that a UK tour is very much on the cards, as are gigs elsewhere. 

In celebration I thought a Sabres Of Paradise Sunday mix was the order of the day. I've deliberately avoided the big hitters, the tunes we all want to hear played live, and gone for some deep cuts, remixes and B-sides, the smokey, murky, dark and dubby Sabres Of Paradise.

Forty Five Minutes Of The Sabres Of Paradise

• Haunted Dancehall (Performed By In The Nursery)
• One Day (Endorphin Mix)
• Lik Wid Nit Wit
• Tow Truck (Depth Charge Mix)
• Theme III
• Jacob Street 7am
• Ysaebud
• Mother India (Sabres At Dawn Mix)

In The Nursery are from Sheffield, twin brothers who have been making music since 1981 and under a different name, Les Jumeaux, they contributed to Smokebelch. Sabres recorded and released Haunted Dancehall in 1994, their second album and the one Jagz considers to be the 'proper' Sabres album (as it was recorded as an album rather than a collection of already completed but unconnected tracks which is how Sabresonic came together). Remixes were commissioned and a remix EP Versus came out on CD with the remixes spread across 7", 10" and 12" on vinyl with versions by In The Nursery, LFO, Depth Charge, The Chemical Brothers, and Nightmares On Wax. In The Nursery took the title track and did their own version. This track had a bizarre second life when it as chosen by the BBC to be the style of music that would be played in the event of the death of the Queen and was played by Radio 1 when Diana was killed in a car crash in August 1997. Depth Charge was J Saul Kane, who made some fantastic sample laden hip hop// trip hop in the 90s and whose music has not to my knowledge been used to soundtrack the deaths of any members of the royal family. 

Sabres remixed Bjork's One Day (from her debut solo album Debut, one of 1993's best records) and the three remixes were released twice, once as Bjork Cut By The Sabres Of Paradise (two versions) and once as a Bjork remix album (titled The Best Remixes From The Album Debut For All The People Who Don't Buy White Labels) along with remixes by Underworld and Black Dog. As was the Sabres practice at the time, the three men would do a remix, then another, then another, changing tempos upwards and pushing things further. The three remixes of One Day are the beautiful slow and chilled Endorphin Mix, the Springs Eternal Mix and the Adrenaline Mix (of Come To Me). 

Lik Wid Nit Wit is a dub techno track that could be Sabres at the best, seven minutes of Andrew's vision and Jagz and Gary's playing- rim shots (that could be Gary banging a drum stick against a scaffolding pipe at Orinoco Studios), melodica, the dull thud of the 909, dub bass, the unmistakeable Weatherall '93 sound. It was played on Andrew's 1993 Essential Mix and appeared on a CD only compilation (Volume) before being re- released by A Sagittarian in 2018. Lik Wid Nit Wit also seems to be the genesis of another pair of Sabres tracks, giving birth in one way or another to both RSD and Wilmot.

Theme III was on the Theme CD single, a metallic dub of the hip hop title track. Theme 4 was on Haunted Dancehall. Theme II turned up on Select Magazine's free cassette Secret Tracks. 

Jacob Street 7am is from Haunted Dancehall, part of the run of three tracks that conclude the album and that form a psychedelic/ ambient endgame to the record and to Nicky McGuire's tour through London's grimy underbelly, as described in noir style in the sleevenotes by one James Woodbourne (actually Andrew).

Ysaebud was released as a one sided 7" single on Andrew's Special Emissions label in 1997, credited to S.O.P. From The Vaults. Easydub. The vocal sample, 'Ever since I was a youth/ I've always been searching for the truth', is from The Truth Theme by The Truth. Killer Sabres dub. 

Mother India was by Fun- Da- Mental, released in 1995 with two Sabres remixes, Sabres At Dawn and Sabres At Dusk. Each remix sounds exactly like the FDM track being redone at that time of day in the title. 

Tristessa

On Saturday night while The Chemical Brothers were block rocking the Other Stage at Glastonbury talk on Twitter turned to the then Dust Brothers 1994 Xmas Dust Up, a cassette given away free with the NME in December 1994. The tape was mixed by Ed and Tom, a window rattling, volume- all-the-way-up, seven song mixtape.

Side 1
The Dust Brothers- Leave Home
Bonus Beats Orchestra- Bonus Beats
The Prodigy- Voodoo People (Dust Brothers Remix)
Depth Charge- Shaolin Buddha Finger

Side 2
Renegade Soundwave- Renegade Soundwave (Leftfield remix)
Strange Brew- One Summer ('Lektrik Dawn Dub)
Manic Street Preachers- La Tristessa Durera



Just looking at the sleeve and reading the tracklist transports me back to this cassette causing difficulties for the speakers in a red Nissan Micra back in 94/95- it used to get played a lot for a while.

Bonus Beats Orchestra was Tom and Ed Dust/Chemical under another name. Depth Charge were ace, the 9 Deadly Venoms album was trip hop and big beat before either really got going, and chock full of samples from martial arts films and horror movies. I've posted Renegade Soundwave before and the Leftfield remix is particularly good. Strange Brew were a duo from Manchester, one half of whom, Jake Purdy, lived down our street when we were kids. We'd long lost touch by the mid 90s but used to knock around in a gang all the time in the mid 80s. Funny to have a little childhood, local connection with a free NME cassette. Helpfully someone has transferred their copy of the tape digitally and uploaded it to Youtube. The beats sound quite timelocked but as a whole this still sounds fairly fresh I think.





The Dust Brothers would become The Chemical Brothers not long afterwards. Their remix of La Tristessa Durera was done while still Dust and isn't subtle-  squealing noises from the start, various samples from Ed and Tom's pile of odds and ends, lots of sirens and James' vocal. La Tristessa Durera- the sadness endures forever- was written by Richie taking the point of view of a war veteran wheeled out once a year on Poppy Day as a 'cenotaph souvenir', poverty causing him to sell his medal. It is one of the best early Manics songs, showing behind the eyeliner, shock quotes and bluster there was some genuine talent.

La Tristessa Durera (From A Scream To A Sigh) (Chemical [Dust] Brothers Remix)

Tow Trucking

I'm trying to fight the blogger's feeling that you should comment on every death in rock 'n' roll and have something to say about it. Chuck Berry died over the weekend- he invented rock 'n' roll, he invented the riff and the lyrical concerns of the song. Mrs Swiss and myself danced to You Never Can Tell at our wedding back in 1995 (we were both in our mid 20s so it wasn't quite the teenage wedding of the song). Other than that there isn't much I have to say about Chuck Berry. He was by all accounts an appalling person but in music we often have to separate the artist from the art, as unpleasant as that can be.

1995 was also the year that Sabres Of Paradise put out a series of remixes by other artists of songs from Haunted Dancehall, released the previous year. Chemical Brothers, LFO, Nightmares On Wax, In The Nursery and Depth Charge all had goes at reworking the work of Weatherall, Kooner and Burns. This Depth Charge version sounds very 1995- dusty, wired and with a big beat.

Tow Truck (Depth Charge Mix)