The Sabres Of Paradise
Sabresonic
Warp CD/DL/2xLP
Haunted Dancehall
Warp CD/DL/2xLP

You remember the face, but you can’t quite place the name – though both seem familiar to you. Start with the former. That wonky blade piercing his ears, the shaved head, the crossed eyes and wincing smile and then, finally, those black drops of his blood, indicating a sly mix of listening pleasure and pain. That’s the logo; then there’s the name. First published in 1960, The Sabres Of Paradise is an account of Imam Shamil’s defence of the Caucasus against Tsarist incursions in 1834. It was penned by British socialite and traveller Lesley Blanch – who also wrote The Wilder Shores Of Love, another title that could be put to better use. Taken together, the cartoon face and the mystical name conjure up a very specific moment. The clear expression of a sound, a scene and a particular sense of fun.

Sabresonic was the club night Andrew Weatherall hosted in the railway arches near London Bridge between 1993–94. This was a lively period of experimentation when variegated terms like progressive house, intelligent techno, dub house disco and ambient dub were being used to define a new, more sensuous kind of dancefloor experience. Shying away from nosebleed techno with its accelerated toytown beats and the glassy eyed raptures of trance, this elusive, cooler type of music came into focus on compilation albums and mixtapes, plus the occasional late night DJ session from pirate radio. Its natural home was always the club, of course, but you could also find it occupying your high street record shop in the form of albums like Sabresonic and Haunted Dancehall, both of which have been remastered and reissued some 30 years after their initial release.

First came Sabresonic back in 1993, a collection of tracks recorded at different times and under different circumstances by Weatherall in partnership with Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns. The three had been putting in a lot of studio time together, something mirrored in the range of material collected on their debut album, its diversity reflecting the complex ecosystem from which it emerged. Opener “Still Fighting” is a case in point. A leftover from Weatherall’s time producing Primal Scream’s 1991 breakthrough album Screamadelica, it’s a complete teardown of the track “Don’t Fight It, Feel It”. Where acid house went high, this one swoops low, with diminished notes and a melody line apt to make sudden unexpected downturns.

Keeping it all busy is a shifting mix of electronic percussion, tabla, sampled drum breaks, plus a lot of subliminal phasing and some ring modulated tweaking that Tristram Cary might call his own. It couldn’t be more different from what comes next, however. “Smokebelch I” is more aggressive than persuasive, all menacing bass, hammering fills and a snapping hi-hat. Its sibling “Smokebelch II (Beatless Mix)” reworks US producer Lamont ‘LB Bad’ Booker’s “The New Age Of Faith” into a sublime chorale.

Meanwhile, “Ano Electro” lurches at you in both andante and allegro versions, built around the same metallic snare shot. The first is doomy and blunted, while the second feels positively uplifting by comparison, combining a sci-fi movie melody with retro electronics. “Inter-Lergen-Ten-Ko” sounds like it has been recorded through a dozen effects pedals, boasting a keyboard run that could have been lifted from ABBA’s “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!”.

At the heart of Sabresonic is “RSD” which looks forward to 1994’s Haunted Dancehall. Recorded in a session commissioned by Red Stripe, its echoes and delays, rattling timbales, upper-register scraping and trim melody closely anticipate the new album’s soundworld. Continuing Weatherall’s fascination with sharp objects – which would manifest itself again in his Two Lone Swordsmen project with Keith Tenniswood – Haunted Dancehall was released with the dark rendering of an open straight razor on its cover. It’s a tougher, grittier and more flexible creature than its predecessor, mixing strong hiphop and dub elements with live studio playing to bring way more bounce to each beat.

This heady combination pulsates through the suite of tracks lying at the centre of this ambitious recording project. The sparse breakbeats, random sonic scraps and spectral bass of “Planet D (Portishead Remix)” contrast neatly with the deep reverberating splendours of “Wilmot” – a flurry of tape rewind that settles into the purest of dubplates filled with vertiginous digital tones, distant voices and the bare bones of a calypso melody: Wilmoth Houdini’s “Black But Sweet”.

As well as continuing some of the spectral spaces of Sabresonic, Haunted Dancehall anticipates the ghosts that have come down to us through sound, the fleeting connections and surprises that bring us closer to music’s primal condition. It’s amazing what a little rimshot can do, reminding us that dub exists in time as well as space, pulling us in and out of the moment. It becomes the endless anticipation of something endlessly repeated – only the fader can save you. Then there’s “Tow Truck” with its sirens, spook-house guitar licks and greasy Hammond organ, held together by a purposeful tambourine – a lasting indication of how much damage can be done with handheld percussion. Unsurprisingly, “Wilmot” and “Tow Truck” were from the same session that produced “RSD”.

“Theme” (released, like “Wilmot”, as a single) is built up from strobing rock chords and big band stabs and completes the middle section of a sprawling album that repays constant revisiting. There’s plenty to rediscover here, such as the random microtones, delays and pauses of “The Duke Of Earlsfield” and the slurred action of “Bubble And Slide II”, opening up new acoustic spaces in the dancehall.

Andrew Weatherall may have departed this planet back in 2020 – outliving the original author of The Sabres Of Paradise by only 13 years – but these reissues will make you feel like he’s never left the building.

This review appears in The Wire 498 along with many other reviews of new and recent records, books, films, festivals and more. To read them all, pick up a copy of the magazine in our online shop. Wire subscribers can also read the issue in our online magazine library.