Haunted Dancehall (Remastered)

1994 second album by the trio of Andrew Weatherall, JagzKooner and Gary Burns, unavailable on vinyl and CD sinceoriginal release. A concept album with accompanying text foreach track by James Woodbourne, it also includes additionalproduction by Portishead and Mr Scruff. Remastered from theoriginal tapes by Matt Colton, contains Theme for the firsttime on the 2LP edition.

By the time this record came out towards the end of 94, TheSabres Of Paradise had evolved from a production trio into afully fledged band, embarking on live tours and augmented forthe stage by additional members such as Rich Thair, from Warplabel mates Red Snapper, and Phil Mossman, later to join LCD Soundsystem. Tapped by Noel Gallagher to support Oasis atenormodomes, the group opted instead to play clubs, studentunions, and infamously, a car park in Central London. Their touradverts contained small print specifying a policy of no jugglers,no fire eaters, no flutes and no hippies with lawyers.

The studio sound had shifted radically as well, utilising samples(notably on the 1930s voodoo jazz inflected Wilmot), liveinstrumentation (the heavy twang guitar riff of Tow Truck)and a deep love of film scores audible throughout, from theblock party funk of Theme to the noir-ish soundscapes of thetitle track. The sense of the album being a soundtrack itself isunderpinned by the accompanying text for each track, rumouredto have been penned by Weatherall himself under a pseudonym,each text fragment joining up to form a suitably grimy, low-litshort story. The Guardian later summed up Haunted Dancehallas technos first concept album.