THE SABRES OF PARADISE

HAUNTED DANCEHALL

There must be countless people who, in the mid-1990s, embarked on a fruitless search through the nation’s bookshops for James Woodbourne’s Haunted Dancehall, the novel that supposedly inspired the album of that name by The Sabres Of Paradise. The emphasis is on “supposedly” because the book, like the Illuminati or the Zionist conspiracy to control the world’s wealth and media, simply doesn’t exist.

The tantalising prose chronicled the nocturnal adventures of our protagonist, one Nicky McGuire, deep in the underbelly of a London recognisable to anyone whose long nights have been characterised by altered states of consciousness. However, the book was a trick of the imagination by the album’s creators, upon which they hung the concept for a fictional soundtrack.

Of course, the notion of soundtracks to films that existed purely in the minds of their composers was nothing new – see ex-Bad Seed Barry Adamson’s Moss Side Story – but the idea of a soundtrack to a fictional book was virgin territory.

Driven by the conceit behind the collection of music contained within Haunted Dancehall’s 14 tracks – where techno collides with rockabilly, calypso, reggae and electronica – this is an album that captures London’s ability to enthrall and appal in equal measure; a city where wits and guile are needed for survival.

Curiously, for a record involving the late producer and DJ Andrew Weatherall, Haunted Dancehall is a stark and glacial album. It moves away from the low-end warmth that characterises much of his work, to create a mood of claustrophobia and dread born from a lack of sleep and security.

Indeed, the coldness that permeates the album is entirely in keeping with the aural story that unfolds across this epic journey, and Haunted Dancehall’s greatest strength is the ability to transmit mental images to illustrate the instrumental music within it.

Here the wah-wah guitar and heavy beats of Theme conjure up images of 70s cop shows. Elsewhere, Wilmot – based on the central riff from Wilmoth Houdini’s 1931 calypso classic Black

But Sweet – transcends the original’s roots to become a swaggering dub monster worthy of an afterhours shebeen. Meanwhile, Tow Truck could be Ennio Morricone’s guitarist

Pino Rucher engaging in a rumble with Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry in some Soho back alley.

Intelligent, evocative and highly creative, this is music to be savoured right down to its final bleep. Do what Nicky McGuire does at the end of sleeve notes: step inside the Haunted

Dancehall and feel its force.