James Vs The Sabres Of Paradise ‎– Jam J

As reviewed by me in August 1994, a time when I was often misusing the word "techno":

Summary: Top notch dub from the dub/techno crossover master Andy Weatherall and pals. I think James lost the battle.

Boy, am I glad I brought a change of underwear! ;-) Topping out my "best dub of 1994" chart by a longshot is this brain crusher by The Sabres of Paradise trio of Andy Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns. Actually not that complex, the Sabres reworking is in four phases dominated by Weatherall's older style of anthemic dub techno rather than the reverberated pounding of other SOP releases.

Arena Dub opens with real drums (well, sampled loops of course), then looped guitar snippets that double over on themselves as the delays kick in. Eventually a wild Jah Wobble style bassline comes in and the parts alternate under various reverbs & delays until finally winding down into Amphetamine Pulsate, a faster, sparser, more electronic phase. Dry TR909 toms bounce from speaker to speaker as a reverb-buried TR808 cowbell (used well, thankfully) plays hide-n-seek with a flanged handclap a la FSOL's remix of Curve's "Rising". In the background a rapid, processed hi-hat line sounds like an uneven, unabrasive metallic buzz. The third part brings new drum and guitar loops with careful applications of delays and tremelos. The last part is mostly just an extension of the previous.

Snatch this one up while you can; I hear it's getting hard to come by already.

If you enjoyed The Orb's classic full 39mins Blue Room cd, then, this cd should be added to your collection!...JAMES vs SABRES OF PARADISE "Jam J" CDEP is one long journey across 33min+(2 part) of languorous electronic, indie guitar, atmospheric downtempo progressive house.music. Totally reworked/rewritten and much extended from the original James version. Here SoP have managed to completely captavaite with there unique hypnotizing moody and very atmospheric sound using dub, slow urban progressive house, and cool swirls of raw indie guitar creating a deep absorbing sound and listening experience with it's slow mind involving music. A truly memorizing musical journey that only The Sabres Of Paradise can create - DO NOT MISS!

When the Sabres of Paradise take you on a journey, they really take you. They rework James' JAM J into a one, long, languorous dub journey, back in the heady days when "chill out" actually meant something. It's time to kick up your feet for the slow, shuffling beats during the Arena Dub" and digital blippery during the "Amphetamine Pulsate." By the "Sabresonic Tremolo Dub" more of the guitars come through, but still in service to the reverb. Finally, the "Spaghetti Steamhammer" rolls in like a Western on Quaaludes.