The One Word Countdown – #30

The rundown’s most prolific contributor….

Theme – Sabres of Paradise (1994, Warp Records, Taken from ‘Haunted Dancehall’

Points 118

I think this might be the fourth week in a row that a track involving in Andy Weatherall has featured in this rundown.  I may as well change the blog name to ‘Bagging Area II’ and be done with it (not that I am in anyway worthy).  Anyway, of all the Andy Weatherall musical projects that have come and gone – and the aforementioned Bagging Area blog is a far greater place to read about them than here – Sabres of Paradise are my favourite.  It is a travesty that ‘Haunted Dancehall’, the second studio album by Sabres of Paradise didn’t achieve more than it did commercially.  It is an album that captures that after party feel perfectly – and (spoiler) it is one that will feature in the Nearly Perfect Album Series at some point.

I first heard ‘Theme’ – a track which was as close as the band came to actually having a proper hit (number 54 with a bullet) courtesy of a dance CD that I got sent when I was DJing.  I forget the name, but it also had a version of Analogue Bubblebath by Aphex Twin on it – and it may have been a Warp Records sampler, but I genuinely can’t remember, and I don’t appear to have it anymore.  Which was a shame because it was one that almost got me kicked out of the university indie society for the heinous crime of liking a CD that didn’t contain many guitars.  It might have been in the pile of CDs stolen by a bloke called Frank whilst my back was turned on the old ones and twos at university.  Might have just lost it, in a drunken haze, or lent it out and never asked for it back.  Who knows.

Analogue Bubblebath – Aphex Twin (1991, Mighty Force Records, Taken from ‘Analogue Bubblebath Vol 1’)

It’s essential Weatherall, a twisted, dubby beat, that has this almost metallic clang running through it that compliments a whole world of musical sounds.  It packs in a (sampled) brass section, a chugging, niggly, guitar riff that sounds like it comes from a car advert, a pounding, hypnotic African drum interlude and a bassline that sounds like a train going up a hill.  It is blended all together in only a way that Mr Weatherall and his bandmates know how to and the result is just astonishingly good.

There were of course one other track that were considered, one of them was ‘Wilmot’ which has one of the finest rewinds ever recorded.

Wilmot – Sabres of Paradise (1994, Warp Records) – it contains a hefty element of ‘Black but Sweet’ by Wilmoth Houdini (something that was brought to my attention by….Mr Bagging Area)