Since over the last couple of weeks I’ve reviewed remastered, reissues of The Sabres Of Paradise’s albums, Sabresonic and Haunted Dancehall, and also interviewed band member Jagz Kooner, I thought I’d pull together a few favourites from the outfit’s expansive list of remixes…

Stereo MCs / Everything (Grooves Parts 1 & 2) /January 1993

Part 1 begins with a Deep South gospel organ, a tribute perhaps to Donnie Frits and Muscle Shoals’ Fame Studios. Much like Primal Scream’s Dixie Narco. Prancing piano plays over a thunderous kick and a break is energetically flicked in and out. The bass-line pays homage to Shaft In Africa. After dropping to just drums, we’re hit with a stunning, stoned solo of echoed, blues-y feedback arcs. 

Part 2 pits loops of piano and clipped rhythm guitar in a call-and-response. The repetition of the keys is particularly trippy. The B-line, initially, is jazzier. It switches back to Blaxploitation following a brief breakdown. There’s no long intro, this is off from the get go. Layer by layer, quickly becoming complex, intense. The beats building a reverb-ed rumble, as each collides with its past. This is The Sabres turning up to “11” the Acid Jazz of The Sandals and Galliano. 

I first heard these promo-only mixes on Weatherall’s now fabled Kiss FM “Giving It Up” radio shows. Looking back, that series of late night early morning broadcasts significantly influenced the “dance” music that I’ve been into ever since. Tracking down the records played, disappearing down rabbit holes, searching out other releases by the artists and producers, digging for old and new tunes that sound similar. This is what’s packed my boxes. Stacked my shelves. Weatherall actually played an unreleased mix he called “Everything’s Gone Quiet”. I eventually found the double-pack in the basement of Manchester’s Vinyl Exchange. 

New Order / Regret (Slow N Low) / April 1993

During its opening minutes, I thought this mix sounded a bit off. I was (and am) a huge fan of the piano-powered Fire Island version, and here the tempo of the backing and vocal seemed at odds. Maybe it was down to the drugs I was taking, and more used to Teutonic trance, wasn’t ready to be slowed to a semi-industrial crawl. 

Bernard Sumner’s sad, melancholy, but unapologetically romantic lyric, accompanied only by Peter Hook’s badass bass and surrounded by extravagantly echoed rattling, made for a strange, unexpected combination. However, then, when the melodica kicks in it made a lot more sense, as the track nodded towards New Order songs such as Love Vigilantes, Your Silent Face, Fine Time and also their cover of Keith Hudson’s Turn The Heater On. 

Personally, with hindsight, Barney’s words smack of addiction – “Just wait until tomorrow, that’s what they all say” – and coming to terms with clean, lonely, and life a more ordinary. When he announces that he’s “Burning all the time”, Hooky’s B-line is swapped for a proper skank, and the melodica replaced by the beautiful guitar part from the Beatless mix of Smokebelch II, making for a massive, emotional journey. 

Peace Together / Be Still / May 1993

Peace Together’s Be Still was part of a larger, star-studded musical project, put together to raise funds for Northern Ireland-based youth charities. The single itself featured Peter Gabriel, Feargal Sharkey, Therapy, Jah Wobble, Sinead O’Connor, plus The Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie and Elizabeth Fraser. The voices of both angels, Liz and Sinead, however, are absent from The Sabres’ mix, which spins like a chilled deconstruction of a ceremonial, military marching band tattoo. Far out folk-tronica fashioned from penny whistle, bodhrán, and bagpipe-like keys, all circling in overlapping delay-drenched loops. A swell of symphonic synth countering Wobble’s anchoring deep, melodic, descending bass-line. 

Bjork / One Day (Springs Eternal) / 1993

The Springs Eternal mix of Bjork’s One Day sonically simulates the supreme, cool calm experienced right after an Ecstasy peak. Its metallic marching and otherworldly whistles might be icy, but send a warm tingle up the spine, while Bjork’s wild, wordless exclamations, strong and soaring, are passionate and totally unique. 

At the time that this was released, me and The Lizard held a residency at The Medicine Bar, on Upper Street, in Islington. The silvery sound of One Day didn’t really go with the rest of the stuff we’d play – a sort of Loft-y mix of post-punk, jazz-funk and house – but I usually necked up before I went on, and so self-indulgently I’d use it as a kind of “sound check”, a first record, pre- the real start. A blissed-out oasis to sooth the rush and my nerves. I remember one night the bouncer coming over, standing in front of the decks, in shades, stone faced, but nodding in agreement. 

Leftfield / Open Up (I Hate Pink Floyd) / November 1993

Leftfield teamed up with John Lydon and The Sabres sent them all time-travelling back to the days of PiL. Titled after a t-shirt that Lydon had famously customised, while the racing, rattling 808 / 909 rhythm owes something to Richie Hawtin / Plastikman’s Spastik, the bass-line is a ringer for one of Jah Wobble’s and the guitar razor sharp, just like Keith Levene’s.  The track actually bears strong similarities to those that Levene worked on with Adrian Sherwood, namely Levene’s own Back Too Black and Vivien Goldman’s Private Armies. 

Most definitely part of the Sabresonic soundtrack, this was the music played at Weatherall’s club held at Happy Jax, on Crucifix Lane, in the Dickensian arches beneath London Bridge. “Bigger than god!” Rotten riffed on John Lennon. Like a demon, summoning / calling down chaos, anarchy, and the whole dungeon-like room stamped and stomped side-by-side, in the darkness, in unison. 

James / Jam J / March 1994

Jam J adds up to 30+ minutes of experimental electronics. The Sabres indulging in sometimes abstract ambience as they remix 2 tracks from James’ album, Wah Wah. Brian Eno produced the originals and on the opening Arena Dub Weatherall, Jagz and Burns trade their progressive house for prog rock and trip hop Robert Fripp-ery. Taking a guitar snippet from a song called Honest Joe, and sending it backwards and forwards over a slow, low levee-breaking beat. Tim Booth’s shouted vocals are also played backwards, giving them a mysterious Middle Eastern / North African edge. The tune boasts a behemoth B-line, but this fades into gently phased riffing and rapidly whirling fairground keys as we segue into a tribal techno tom tom-ed part 2 titled Amphetamine Pulsate. This again, then, finally falls to an unaccompanied Hendrix-like feedback solo. 

On the flip you’ll find the radical re-imaginings of Jam J. Tremelo Dub is defined by a heavy axe lick, pitched right down. Beefy, buzzing bass bullies a head-nodding tempo, while the tune’s beats run in reverse and collide. Timbales tumble under David Lynch-ian / Wicked Games guitar picking. The Sabres teasing with all of these elements for around 8 minutes before releasing the shredding for a few minutes of cathartic head-banging. A wistful, whistling melody then appears, no doubt giving this part 2 its name, Spaghetti Steamhammer. In a tip of the hat to the partnership of Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone, tremolo twang serenades the disintegrated debris of the drums. The sonic aesthetics of this whole EP soaked into the sound of The Sabres’ 1995 LP, Haunted Dancehall. You can hear it on tracks such as Tow Truck and Chapel Street Market 9AM. 

Jam J was a record that rocked The Lizard’s Almedia Street basement apartment as we readied ourselves for a night out. Its building drama, tension, slight touch of doom and dread, suited the mood of mounting anticipation and the stupid self-destructive levels of drug smoking, snorting and swallowing. The head-banging bit also didn’t go amiss, as  The Lizard, and his brother, Polite Pelican, were both into bands like Guns N Roses, Mother Love Bone, and Jane’s Addiction.. 

Red Snapper / Hot Flush / May 1995

Red Snapper’s jumpin’ jazz jive gets a shiny, smooth, Sci-Fi polish. Heavily influenced by Patrick Pulsinger’s City Lights and Joe Meek. Ali Friend’s cool contrabass and Rich Thair’s near drum & bass tempo-ed syncopation now supplemented with strange alien tones, and resembling a Bond theme sent out into orbit. 

The only time I met Kooner and Burns in person was when they were propping up the bar at a Snapper gig. Weatherall was warming up, spinning an incredible set funk obscurities, very likely purchased from Soft Rocks’ Chris Galloway. Aphex Twin was also in attendance. 

Primal Scream / Jailbird (Weatherall Dub Chapter 3) / June 1994

There’s arguably very little of the original left here, bar the tiniest fragment of Bobby G’s vocals. What was started out as a loud glam rock stomp, a Stones in Memphis homage, is “absolutely destroyed”, smashed to pieces, obliterated. The pulverised parts are isolated, most discarded, the remainder treated to mad doses of delay and stretched into an expansive 13 minute dub. The rhythm is an almost electro / RUN DMC 808 rattle. Guitar riffs and solos are removed, making way for for laser blasts, and instead of a chorus the song’s main melody now recalls Simple Minds’ Theme For Great Cities – a tune Weatherall rinsed back in his Balearic Beat daze. 

My introduction to Weatherall Dub Chapter 3 was as it echoed around Victoria’s SW1 Club, while we waited for The Sabres Of Paradise live band to take the stage. I happened to be standing next to Andrew Innes’ partner, Alison, who told me what it was. Leaving me kinda confused – admittedly I’d consumed enough stuff to confuse anybody – and disappointed. This epic sounded nothing like The Sabres Sweeney 2 mix of the track I’d just picked up. 

Fun-Da-Mental / Mother India (Sabres At Dusk) / November 1995

This doesn’t remind me of anywhere in particular, just the mid-90s and being out of it. The morning after taste of too many dirty, street chemicals. Unwanted clarity, fighting its way through a filthy fuzz. Percussion shakes and shuffles like brushed snares, but most certainly isn’t, interlocking in hypnotic loops with buzzing strains of something sitar-like. Summoning sunset on The Ganges in a bedsit above an off-licence on Upper Street.