The Sabres Of Paradise have removed their music from Spotify due to its “financial ties to AI-driven weapon technologies”.
The influential UK electronic group, which was formed by the late legendary DJ Andrew Weatherall alongside Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns, issued a social media statement on Monday (November 10) outlining the reasoning behind their decision.
“After careful consideration, we have decided to remove all The Sabres Of Paradise music from Spotify,” they wrote. “This hasn’t been made lightly – but we can’t continue to support a platform whose model undervalues artists, underserves listeners, and who’s leadership’s financial ties to AI-driven weapon technologies go against everything we believe music should stand for.”
“Music should inspire, connect and uplift,” they continued. “Not fund or align with industries that contradict those values.”
They also thanked their longtime label Warp Records for “standing with us and supporting our choice with full integrity”, while confirming that their music would remain on other streaming platforms that “in our view better reflect our principles”. The post was signed by Burns, Kooner and the estate of Weatherall.
The band are far from the first high-profile musicians to withdraw their music from Spotify in recent months, following reports over the summer that the outgoing CEO Daniel Ek led a €600million (£524million) investment into Helsing, a Munich-based company creating drones and artificial intelligence for military operations.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard pulled their music from the streaming platform as a result, in a bid to “put pressure on these Dr. Evil tech bros to do better”. Xiu Xiu made a similar move due to Ek’s “investment in AI war drones”, while Massive Attack, Deerhoof and Wu Lyf all removed their music too.
In September, Ek announced that he would be stepping down as CEO on January 1, 2026, with Spotify co-presidents Alex Norström and Gustav Söderström set to take his place.
During his tenure, Ek came under fire multiple times, including when it was reported that Spotify had made profits of over €1billion (£860million), but at the expense of staff being laid off, artists struggling to make any income from streaming, and subscription prices rising.
It became even harder for artists to make money from the platform last year, when Spotify officially demonetised all songs on the platform with less than 1,000 streams.
Last week, it emerged that the company had added 5million paid subscribers, up 12 per cent to 281million. Its total revenue for the third quarter of 2025 increased seven per cent to $4.27billion (£3.25billion).
The Sabres Of Paradise released three critically acclaimed albums via Warp between 1993 and 1995. Weatherall died from a pulmonary embolism in February 2020 at the age of 56.
