Jagz Kooner & Gary Burns Sabresonic Studio, David Holmes

The Sabres Of Paradise are familiar to many as the experimental dance project headed by renowned DJ/Producer Andy Weatherall. However, the two other members of the Sabres also have an extensive list of production and remix credits to their credit. Nigel Humberstone talked to them at the Sabresonic Studio about their recent work.

Oddly enough, when the Sabres Of Paradise are mentioned in the music press, it's nearly always Andrew Weatherall's name that comes up, as though the other two founder members, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns, were unimportant sidekicks. However, a closer look reveals that Kooner and Burns have been responsible not only for much of the sound associated with the Sabres and their critically acclaimed albums Sabresonic and Haunted Dancehall, but also for distinctive production and songwriting for others, including techno DJ David Holmes. Add to this the fact that Jagz and Gary are in constant demand for remix work, and it should come as no surprise that the duo have set up their own separate publishing deals with Island Music and are apparantly preparing to retire the Sabres Of Paradise permanently to concentrate on their own work.

Nevertheless, it was undeniably their work with the Sabres that gave Kooner and Burns their first success. Kooner, like many, started off fiddling around with bits of equipment in his bedroom, while Burns, a trained keyboardist, was making a living from session work. They met up with Andy Weatherall thanks to frequent visits to the Flying Club in London (where Andy was DJing) at the time of acid house.

Kooner: "The first thing we did with Andy was in 1992, the 'Visions Of You' remix for Jah Wobble. That went well, so then he called us in to do the One Dove album [Morning Dove White, eventually released in 1993 — see SOS December '93]. After that, we decided to form a band, and so the Sabres Of Paradise were born."

Neither of the two has any engineer or studio training, just self‑taught knowledge and reluctance to follow the rules.

Kooner: "Engineers I've spoken to are taught how to do things in a certain way, which to me is hypocritical — the thing is to do it how you feel it sounds best."

The Sabresonic Studio

As a result of the ever‑increasing number of requests for remixes and their addiction to recording studios, Kooner and Burns, together with Weatherall, decided to set up their own recording facility which could cater for both their technical needs and work methods. The Hounslow‑based studio had previously been a first floor demonstration suite for a local music shop when the opportunity arose for them to take it over.

Burns: "We had been using this studio occasionally — for instance to do the One Dove album — so one day we said to the owner 'what about selling us the studio?' and that was it."

Kooner: "It was down to the time we were spending at other studios in London. During one year at Orinoco Studios, we clocked up eight months' studio time. Also, we had to drive there and back — we were losing three hours a day."

The Sabresonic studio is now an essential workplace for all projects, and is still owned by Burns, Kooner and Weatherall, who run it as a business with a daily charge implemented regardless of who is using it. Having their own studio makes it easier for accepting and scheduling remix work, but it also allows Kooner and Burns to pursue various other ventures and side‑projects like the last Sabres Of Paradise album Haunted Dancehall, the recent bizarrely‑titled David Holmes album, This Film's Crap Let's Slash The Seats, and the Cover The Crime album by The Aloof, a band that includes both Kooner and Burns in its line‑up. Already, the Sabresonic studio is looking busy for the rest of the year, with bookings for a new Aloof album, tracks with Denise Johnson (ex‑Primal Scream) and the duo's as‑yet‑unnamed new band to follow on from the Sabres Of Paradise — and then, of course, there are the inevitable remixes...

Kooner: "We're in here all the time. If we're not working on a track, we'll be doing a bit of maintenance or setting up a new piece of kit."

However, asked whether there are any particular pieces of equipment they wouldn't be without, the men from Sabresonic are temporarily nonplussed.

Kooner: "It's really hard to say, because every bit of gear in here we really do use. The reason we got this studio together was so that everything we had used before in other studios would be here in one place."

Sabre Gear

In fact, the Sabresonic workhorses are the four Akai samplers: an S1000, S1100, S1100EX and S3000i. Data storage is handled by a 44Mb removable DAC drive, recently augmented by a larger 230Mb optical.

Kooner: "We're going to be upgrading the memory of the Akai samplers soon, because they're the basis on which we build everything.

"A lot of purchases have been based on our work in other studios. When we moved into the studio we knew we wanted Oberheim Matrix 1000s — we've now got two. The whole Emu Proteus range was also something we knew we wanted. We've actually gone more for sound modules than effects, whereas many studios go the other way round.

"You can't edit the Matrix 1000s — but there's a thousand sounds in there, so if you can't find something, you'd better start again. The Matrix has been a major league player in the Sabres sound — I think virtually every track that we've done has got a Matrix 1000 sound in it."

"The Ensoniq DP4 is also pretty essential. We've got two — they're outrageous. They each have four separate effects that you can link and configure in different ways. On the Sabres track 'Return Of Carter' we've got this mad stereo panning, almost tremolo reverb; most of our mad effects are created on the DP4. You can also put a gate on each channel to stop any noise creeping through. It is the one thing that will get used on every session."

A Peavey 2400 series desk came as part of the deal when the duo bought the studio. I wondered how they found working with it.

Kooner: "It's not got any MIDI muting, but it is good to work with. It's got four effects sends and four auxiliary sends, and the EQ's really good."

Burns: "It's useful having a split console, because we can bring up all the effects returns on faders, and then re‑route them to other effects. A lot of the effects we'll control 'hands on' in the 'old school' way, just firing them off now and then."

Although Kooner and Burns possess an Akai ADAM digital recording system, they hardly ever use it, except for recording the odd vocal. On the other hand, their Falcon computer is the nerve centre of their operations and is constantly in use. However, it arouses strong feelings in them akin to those expressed in SOS's 'Sounding Off' page.

Kooner: "Everything we do is from the arrangement page in Cubase running on the Falcon — and our version hasn't worked properly since the day we got it. If you go into Key Edit and alter anything, it crashes! It keeps giving us grief; we invested a lot of money in it and expected a top‑flight system, which it would be if it worked properly. One inherent problem is that when we've got Cubase booted up, we can't format a blank disk. A basic requirement of a computer system is media storage, so if we can't even save our information to a new disk, there's not much hope, is there?"

The Workaholics Of Paradise?

Like most dual partnerships, Kooner and Burns interact but have developed particular defined roles within their working relationship. Kooner: "I can't play any instrument at all — or maybe just a little bit to get by — and I'm tone deaf. So I'm more into the programming, while Gary basically plays everything.

"But it's good the way we work, because we swap roles — Gaz might be over one side of the room by the desk and wiring things up in the patchbay, whilst I'm over the other side getting sounds together. Then maybe I'll go over and start tweaking bits on the desk, and Gary will work on the arrangement. That way, we don't tread on each other's toes."

Evidently, however, the partnership works: Kooner and Burns are highly prolific, at their most productive turning out three tracks a week. Their work method is to write, record and mix a track in one go, with little room for any back‑tracking.

Kooner: "I find that if we've got everything set up on the desk and then you need to come back to that same configuration later on, you'll spend half a day patching everything up, because we work with specific effects settings that are tricky to recreate. I also feel that if you get a track up and running and you don't finish it, then you almost lose the vibe on it — or at least it changes."

One characteristic of the Sabres sound is that instruments are often considerably treated and effected. Kooner: "As far as effects are concerned, we never stick to a preset — we've always got to alter it in a drastic fashion. When we timestretch a sample, we'll stretch it by 100 percent, then 400 percent, then shrink it by 25 percent, take it up again by 150 percent, and so on, so that the original sample is unrecognisable. Our two Yamaha SPX900's play a major part, with short delays and really high regeneration times to get a mad metallic effect."

Even with basslines, an unorthodox approach is adopted. Burns: "A lot of the time, I'll play along with the track, straight into the sampler. We do little tweaks on the sampler so that sometimes the signal distorts as it goes in, and you get a mad overloaded bass sound with digital distortion."

Kooner: "We don't use compression at all. The bass has really got to be 'old school' — straight out of the bass and into the sampler. I think that's part of our whole vibe; we don't do anything that's over‑produced, we like to keep it at the low end, dirty level. Like with hip‑hop — it's just one loop, no EQ, with a TR808 filling out the bottom end on the first beat of each bar — and people just knock the stuff out. And house music — most of the original good stuff is done in basic 4‑track studios, or if not, done live on a 16‑track desk. You could spend ages in a studio cleaning everything up, but then I think you lose a lot of the dynamics — nothing jumps out at you, it all sits in there nicely. With us, it's got to be dirty, grungy and gritty."

"Even listening back to old jazz records, all the good stuff is where you can hear them breathing and tapping their feet" concludes Burns.

Rules? Nah!

The studio has a small recording room, which despite having barely enough space for a drum kit, is used to great effect. Burns: "A lot of the time Richard Thair (drummer and percussionist with The Aloof) will come in with his full kit and set it up a bit at a time. We'll get him to just play his bass drum, record that and play it back to him after looping it up, so that he can play hi‑hat and snare over the top. Then we'll add things like timbales and cymbals.

"A lot of the time we'll just get loops, stick 'em on DAT and sample them off later. We don't actually use multitrack tape that much."

Kooner: "There really are no rules. A lot of people still won't accept that the One Dove album was done by the same lot that have done the Sabres albums. Nothing ever comes out sounding the same." I asked if this was because the pair were reluctant to re‑use tried and tested sounds and methods, but this met with a grin. "No, it's usually because we can't remember how we've done things the time before!" jokes Kooner, but with a hint of honesty.

Burns: "Usually, it's because of the different vibe from working with different people. With the Sabres, I wouldn't play a nice‑sounding riff — we'd always go for something with a minor key or moody feel. It's almost as though you get into a certain frame of mind when different people come in."

Kooner: "Sometimes you have to restrict yourself, because the way that The Aloof approach their work and the way Andy Weatherall approaches his are totally different, and it's different again with David Holmes."

The David Holmes Experience

Renowned techno DJ David Holmes opens my interview with words guaranteed to freeze any SOS feature writer's blood: "You're not going to ask me about machines are you? I don't play any of the instruments, and to tell you the truth I know absolutely sod all about equipment," he announces. But Holmes' natural forte is knowing what music works in a club environment, a skill which has established his reputation as a leading techno DJ. Nevertheless, I wondered how he went about translating his ideas into the finished music on his debut album This Film's Crap Let's Slash The Seats. Holmes: "I just have an engineer and a programmer. I should be learning everything myself, but I'm more interested in getting a vibe going. You know, I just understand how to programme music and make it work. People have said that it's better for me to have a back seat in it, because when you're actually involved in making it all yourself, you can get too caught up in the production and lose the edge."

Kooner and Burns had previously worked alongside David Holmes when remixing the Sabres Of Paradise's single 'Smokebelch'. Was he really just taking a back seat?

Burns: "Basically, yeah. Oh, no — he cracked some horrendously bad jokes as well. Seriously, though, David came in with loads of different CDs and said 'I really like this kind of vibe and this little sequence going on in the background.' We'd normally come up with some other ideas, and he'd pick ones he liked."

Kooner: "It's generally the way we work with most people; we feed off each other. David will literally turn up with a bus‑load of CDs and records. When he comes into the studio, he's got an A4 pad which is full of ideas for each track, with notes and references. It was a good album to do — everyone expected it to be full‑on banging techno because it was David Holmes, but it shocked a lot of people."

I asked David how the album idea had come about, and why he'd decided to confound everyone's expectations. "I'd said to my mates that I'd love to make an album, because I was getting bogged down with remixes and wasn't getting enough of my own material out there. Plus I was getting a 'tag' as a heavy techno DJ, which isn't the case. I wanted to incorporate lots of different genres of music, and it was good when the album came out and people found it wasn't what they had expected. A lot of reviewers have picked up on the filmic content, but that wasn't really intended — it's just that sometimes I do a lot of tracks from experiences. 'No Man's Land' on the album is based on the film In The Name Of The Father, and the soundtrack to that was so great that you get an instant vibe. It was a piece of piss, really, because I come from Belfast, so it was totally from the heart.

"I went to see the film four times, and sat there with a little Dictaphone recording to get different vibes, like the prison doors closing, a church bell, military drums and Irish percussion. The church bell was just an idea jotted down on paper and, in the end, sourced from a CD, like the footsteps and door slamming."

The main melody motif on 'No Man's Land' is particularly emotive. Burns elaborates on how the Celtic feel was achieved: "That track was done over a year ago. It's actually off the Emu Proteus 3; the 'Penny Whistle' preset, but with a short 100ms delay which sounds more like a reverb. I like doing stuff like that, with a soundtracky vibe."

Holmes: "It was perfect because it blended in with the whole electronic aspect. It's hard to do an Irish thing without it sounding like a cheesy jig".

Further inspiration and influences came from many different sources, including other soundtrack works, as Holmes explained: "I was at Sabresonic working on 'Slash The Seats'. We'd got the acid line down and the beats, and one morning, while I was waiting for Jagz and Gary, I played this John Carpenter soundtrack that I'd bought that weekend. They came in and thought it was perfect for the track, so we adapted it and put in all the sci‑fi sounds from the Juno. It worked! 'Gone' with Sarah Cracknell [better known as the singer from St Etienne] was a track that I'd already done called 'Hawaiian Death Dub' on my own label. My press agent got this idea to put something like the Shangri‑Las over the top, and I'm a big fan because I've come through all the rhythm'n'soul, Latin American thing — I was a mod. So, we got Sarah in, remixed the track, and now it doesn't sound anything like the original. 'The Atom And You' has this old Super 8 projection we used to have at college. It's this mad professor talking about the atom bomb, and I transferred it onto DAT and took snippets of it.

"The track 'Inspired By Leyburn' was just that. Glenn Leyburn is my artwork designer, a really good friend. He brought me back this tape from New York where there's one break that's just perfect. It was two days before I was going to do the track, I heard it and just went 'yes please'."

Kooner recalls working on this track, as well as the story of the breakbeat. "That was the track with Steve Hillage playing guitar, but the actual breakbeat was off a bootleg cassette and was very dull. So we bought it in on one channel and made it clean by getting rid of the top‑end hiss, then patched it into the next channel, cranked up the bass and took all the top end out of it. Then, on a third channel, I got the actual loop from the first channel, and put a rumble filter on it that knocked out everything below 1kHz and everything above 4kHz, to give you the harshness of it. Then I just levelled the three tracks together. It's a method that we've used before on a Sabres track."

Some inspiration was even more accidental, as David recalls: "A lot of the album was just a fluke. 'Got Fucked Up Along The Way', was in fact a Jah Wobble remix that was rejected because the record company thought it was too experimental — so I bought it back off them. The bassline is Wobble's played backwards. It's my favourite track on the album, I love it because it's so different — you can't pigeon‑hole it.

"Another track, 'Minus 61 In Detroit' I recorded mainly at my own Exploding Plastic Inevitable studio in Belfast. The set up is fairly 'acid house'." [See separate box above].

It is at this studio that Holmes works with engineer and programmer Gary Irwin, a like‑minded soul: "I pay him good money to come in and work with me. Every time I buy a new toy it's like Christmas morning for him. I was making money from remixes, so I put the money back into equipment because I want to be making music for the rest of my life".