Sabres of Paradise - The reunion interview, live at Primavera Sound
In October 2024, with absolutely no knowledge of what was to come, I started to think about Sabres of Paradise, the pioneering, obfuscating dance trio formed by the late Andrew Weatherall in 1992 and in particular their classic, genre-hopping second album Haunted Dancehall.
Maybe something was in the air. A few weeks later, Sabres of Paradise’s Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns announced that they were reforming the band for live dates in summer 2025, including Primavera Sound, my stomping ground. It was highly unexpected and yet also entirely fitting - a show to pay tribute to Weatherall five years after his death. I duly published a Substack about Haunted Dancehall and it became one of my best-performing pieces to date.
When Primavera Sound came around, I asked Kooner and Burns for an interview. There was a lot to dig into: Why had they come back? Who were Sabres of Paradise, exactly? What influence had they had? And so on.
The interview was released as a Line Noise podcast this week. You can hear it here. But for those of you who prefer a read, I decided to publish it here. I hope you enjoy it. As ever, some slight editing has gone into the interview text for clarity.
We go into the reasons behind the Sabres reunion, why the band split in the first place, plans for a possible third Sabres album with a feature from Tom Waits and the band’s unclassifiable appeal.
Line Noise: I can't believe you're here. I was telling Jagz earlier that when I ran through the lineup of people playing Primavera Sound 2025, I saw Sabres of Paradise. And I thought, ‘What the hell!’ I couldn't believe you were playing. How did it happen?
Jagz Kooner: It really started unofficially when we were reunited at Andrew Weatherall's funeral. We hadn't seen each other for a while, so we met there, and then we just started to get back in touch a bit more. And then after that, a few years down the line, we got asked to do a Q and A to mark the 30th anniversary of the album Sabresonic at the Golden Lion [pub] in Todmorden.
It was one of those things where the Flightpath Estate, the Oracle of anything to do with Andrew Weatherall and the Sabres of Paradise, asked the Sabres, ‘Would you be up for coming in to do a little Q and A because it's the 30th anniversary of the album and would you be interested to DJ as well?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, no problem,’ to all of it. And then it was a case of, ‘Right, better go and have a listen to that album and actually work out what we made in those days.’ Because it was 30 years ago.
I had to go through a whole load of vinyl, 12 inches of remixes and transfer them onto USB and WAVs. And it rekindled my love of everything that I had for Sabres. Because the thing is, from a producer / musician point of view, you finish an album, or you finish your project, and then you move on to the next one and you don't really stop to look back on anything. So it was one of those things where it was like, ‘Okay, right? Better stop and actually look back on what we did back then.’
Line Noise: You played your first reunion gig at London's Fabric. How did you feel when you when you stepped on the stage?
Gary Burns: Obviously, a bit apprehensive. But it was absolutely amazing. Those kind of gigs, it's all your friends and they're a few feet away from you, all looking at you. They're nerve wracking, those ones. But it was great.
Jagz Kooner: It’s a baptism of fire that one and it's a test as well, because you've started that whole game of, ‘Right, let's do this and let's see what we can do with it.’ So everybody there knows about it and the expectancy levels are pretty high. And then on top of that, it was a sold-out show at Fabric, which is a nightclub that we all know and love really well. And they’ve got an amazing sound system, topped off with all your friends being there to check out how it actually is going to be, as well. So it was a lot to take in from that perspective. But it went really well. The feedback was incredible. Everybody really loved it. So that really gave us the platform and springboard to get on with everything.
Gary Burns: It settled our nerves a little bit, to be honest.
Line Noise: Just in time to play the Sydney Opera House.
Jagz Kooner: Yeah, exactly, out of the frying pan into the fire, really. Straight from Fabric to Sydney Opera House. No pressure.
Line Noise: Is the show a tribute of sorts to Andrew Weatherall? Do I have that right?
Jagz Kooner: It's a really weird one. Basically, when the Sabres of Paradise were going, Andrew didn't really want to do the live band. He left it to me and Gary to get a band together. So we got all of our friends together. We got Phil Mossman involved, who after Sabres went on to join LCD Soundsystem. We got Rich Thair involved, who also was part of Red Snapper. We got Nick Abnett, who's fantastic bass player. That was the original lineup and we've got the original lineup now. But when we did it 30 years ago, we only did about 20 gigs in total. We did our own little tour of about seven dates, we supported Primal Scream on five / six / seven dates as well. And then we went to Japan, did three dates there, and then we split up.
Line Noise: I think I saw you supporting Primal Scream at Norwich UEA, that was great.
Gary Burns: Yes, that was quite the experience.
Line Noise: Did you always feel like there was unfinished business because you split up in 95?
Jagz Kooner: We came back from Japan and the thing is with Andrew, he was always about pushing boundaries, trying to experiment with new things, and he always loved being in the underground, being a mythical, mysterious figure in the background.
He worked with Primal Scream and then Screamadelica blew up. And so he was like, ‘Right, I want to retreat again and start something different.’ And so that's when we formed the Sabres of Paradise. But then that really started to blow up as well. And the thing with Andrew is he wasn't really a fan of being in the limelight, even though he could deal with it really well - he was great at doing interviews and everything. It was just something that he wasn't really a fan of. And so when the Sabres started to blow up, he was starting to go, ‘This a bit too much…’
Line Noise: Am I right that there were plans for a third Sabres album with Ice T, Al Green, Tom Waits and Bobby Gillespie?
Gary Burns: There was talk of all sorts of people doing it but we did actually do a track with Bobby Gillespie. And we did a track with Little Annie from On-U Sound. And when Tom Waits, his name was mentioned, Andrew was like, ‘I can't work with him. He's one of my heroes.’
Line Noise: Could you have got Tom Waits?
Gary Burns: We don't know whether it was just talk. There were all sorts of names flying around.
Jagz Kooner: This is it. I think it’s one of those things with A&R men getting together, having a chat, thinking about, ‘Oh, who can we pair them up with?’ There was Ice T, Al Green, all sorts of names. I don't know where they came from…
Gary Burns: Elvis! They were just chucking names at us.
Line Noise: I was trying to explain to someone recently what kind of band Sabres of Paradise are - and it was really hard to do. Because the debut album, you could probably say, ‘Well, it was kind of techno.’ And then Haunted Dancehall was techno, dub, hip hop… I don’t know.
Jagz Kooner: That's for other people to tell you what we're about or what the sound is like. Because we don't really know. We just went in the studio and did what we did. We experimented with bits of equipment, Gary used to get a tray and put matches on it and then shake it and we'd get a weird metallic sound out of that. And there was all sorts of experimentation going on, where we put… obviously we’d throw Gary in because he's a really good musician, can play every instrument under the sun. Throw him in a room, a big, cavernous room, and just get him to hit things and see what we can come out with.
Gary Burns: Just having fun, really. And seeing what good sounds we could make.
Jagz Kooner: But if you want to know how to describe us, I couldn't help you there. I’m afraid.
Line Noise: The two albums are being re-released, Sabresonic and Haunted Dancehall. What do you think is your legacy? What do you think when you listen to those albums now?
Gary Burns: Like Jagz said, we didn't really listen to them for a long time. But now they're out again and doing them live… it’s hard to say really. I mean, it's rekindled interest in listening to them and finding out how to do them live. But like Jagz said, we used to move on all the time.
Jagz Kooner: I think for me, it's now justified. At the time, when we were doing them, it's like, ‘Let's just do it.’ Because we were a bit of a conveyor belt, making music, doing remixes, get it out there, move on to the next song, try a load of new ideas. And then just one day, we recorded this album and the album was done and it went out there. And I don't think we actually sat down and listened to it, in its entirety, until about two years ago, when we actually decided to do the Sabres Q and A, which led to the reformation of the live band, and then led to the moment that we're here today about to play Primavera.
Some listening
Valencia rise up! As my favourite Valencian band - Gazella - is remixed by my favourite Valencian producer - Pépe! Now I don’t want to get too egocentric - on a newsletter written entirely by me, devoted 100% to my musical tastes LOL - but this track feels like it could have been created with Line Noise in Mind.
Gazella, as I will never tire of explaining, create a jaw-dropping mix of shoegazing, electronica and flamenco, with their recent Vías album being one of the best releases of the year to date. Within that, Aracea is probably the track that best exemplifies their unique sonic stew, so what better song for valiantly eclectic producer Pépe to get his immaculate studio teeth into, adding a sun-baked Think break and oddly vacillating bass line to proceedings? The result is definitely the best shoegaze / drum & bass / flamenco crossover you will hear this - or perhaps any - summer. What the hell do they put in the water in Valencia?
You know what’s hard to make? Happy music. And weird happy music all the more so. But that is what Tertia has dreamed up on her new single, Arlo. Or at least on the first half of the song, which sports a delightfully perky synth riff, an ever-climbing electronic effect and a vocal that sounds dreamy in its contentment. And then, half way through, Arlo flips: in come the strings and lightly distorted guitar, while the rhythm stretches itself out on the sonic lawn, in a second movement that is as elegant as it is entirely unexpected. The change would be dazzling, if it wasn’t so delicious.
Soul II Soul - Dreams a Dream (Ron Trent Refix)
Soul II Soul and Ron Trent are a dream combination, the former’s Brit-soul chops allowing Trent to go deep with his house expansionism, teasing the original song’s melancholic urgency into a waking dream of string-laden, lush afro-ish house. Thanks to JOHN'S MUSIC BLOG for the tip.
Kieran Hebden and William Tyler - Spider Ballad
I wish this song had another name because it is nigh-on impossible to describe William Tyler’s playing on Spider Ballad as anything other than “spidery”, for the way it creeps around the mix, light-leggéd, agile and ever-so-slightly creepy. To accompany this, Kieran Hebden doesn’t have to do much - and crucially he doesn’t, just adding in the skeleton of a four-four beat and dabs of vacillating synth, which elevate Tyler’s guitar line without ever threatening to smother it.
This column is, by and large, reserved for new music. But who could fail to be seduced by Candombe-flavoured psychedelic rock from the Uruguayan Beatles? Candombe - the song - is from the group’s masterpiece, the 1968 album La Conferencia Secreta del Toto's Bar, a record often rather lazily referred to as the Latin Sgt. Pepper’s.
That is obviously meant as a compliment. But La Conferencia Secreta… is no weak Fab Four copy, introducing local influences like tango and candombe to the group’s love of John Coltrane and - yes - The Beatles to make a record that sounds unique. Lots of love to Andrew Hickey and his superlative A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs for the recommendation, which will live in my heart alongside The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle.
Molly Drake - Little Weaver Bird
Andrew Hickey was also responsible for this incredible tip, which dominated my weekend listening. I think I did know, vaguely, that Nick Drake’s mother had written songs. But I had never listened to them until Hickey played some excerpts on a podcast episode about Nick’s Fruit Tree.
Molly’s history is well worth investigating. But, essentially, she was a very established piano player, singer and composer, who never had any desire to release her music. Recordings do exist though, 19 demos which were recorded in the 1950s, of Molly singing her songs while backing herself on piano, the slightly scratchy quality in no way taking away from the crystalline beauty of the music. These were released as the eponymous Molly Drake album in 2013, after two of Molly’s songs were included on Nick Drake’s 2007 compilation album Family Tree.
Nick Drake fans will be blown away by the similarity of their two voices - both hushed, sincere and somehow very proper with it - and the exquisite songwriting, which tips its hat to folk music and jazz without ever quite conforming to their norms. Once you’ve got over that, though, it is better jto sit back and enjoy the haunting, slightly gloomy, beauty of the songs, of which Little Weaver Bird is perhaps my favourite.
Tom Skinner - Kaleidoscopic Visions
Tom Skinner - best known as a member of The Smile - is one of the greatest drummers in modern music. So it is a brave, refreshingly ego-free move to launch his second solo album with a song that puts drums largely on the back burner. Kaleidoscopic Visions, from the forthcoming album of the same name, is a luxuriously slinky groove, where an inquisitive bass line leads strings, brass and wind in an ever-so-slightly atonal crawl, the delicate flutter of a flute breaking out in dazzling patterns around its head. The drums are beautifully played, of course, but work in the service of the psychedelic whole.
Things I’ve done
The One-minute Review - Tyler, The Creator: Don’t Tap The Glass
Yup it’s me, hay-fevered to the max, reviewing Tyler, The Creator’s new album in just one minute. (OK it’s actually 1.50 but let’s not get too literal, eh?). All being well, this should soon become a new feature for Radio Primavera Sound so please do watch and give lots of likes etc.
The playlists
I have two: The newest and bestest 2025; and The newest and the bestest. They are both on Spotify, in the name of reaching the largest amount of people. Does that justify it? Maybe not. Funnily enough, I personally use Apple Music, so maybe I should shift to there, although the functionality isn’t as good. I don’t know. What do you think?