artist: Global Communication country of origin: UK style(s): Ambient techno essential releases: Pentamerous Metamorphosis (1994, Dedicated) 76'14 (1994, Dedicated/Sanctuary Records)

If Krautrock pioneers like Tangerine Dream had remained inspired and vital into 1990's with all the advances in music technology that have ensued, they might have made an album like 76'14. Mind you, reading the sleeve notes to this new-school ambient classic from UK producers Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton suggests a rather dodgy new age pedigree. Specifically, the invitation to interpret the music by sending in your "paintings, photographs, poetry, sculpture, recipes and aromas". Come on guys, you are you kidding aren't you? But what matters, of course, is the music within. This album fully deserves its hallowed status in the dance and electronic underground as one of the great ambient techno releases.

76'14 sounds like a near-perfect example of tone painting in the tradition of classic European synthesiser music but recast in the 90's with the latest music computers and sampling techniques and a dash of Detroit techno. This is music that brilliantly evolves melodies from pure texture, music that displays a real respect for subtlety and has an instinct for the awe-inspiring that will just wipe you out. From sighing cosmic vignettes to precise, melodic electro-rhythms, the moods simply melt from one into the other. Middleton and Pritchard show they understand where to draw the line before music that’s sweet and uplifting becomes something that's merely trite. The second and fourth tracks (none of them have actual names) are outstanding in the way they evolve from the simplest of sound effects: one a ticking clock, the other a radio pulse pinged from deep space.

Although 76'14 is the classic GC release, the duo's first album Pentamerous Metamorphosis sounds more and more seductive with each passing year. A complete and radical "re-imagining" of music from the album Blood Music (1993) by UK indie rock band Chapterhouse, it goes so far beyond a simple remix album that it can be rightly considered an original Global Communication release. It has the same spacey and exquisitely detailed sound as 76'14 and the melodies hit the mark consistently. "Alpha Phase" is profoundly uplifting, "Beta Phase" has a retro sci-fi melody to die for, and "Epsilon Phase" is shadowy and almost unbearably sad. Techno snobs might call an album like this "polite", belonging as it does to an era of melodic ambient techno from the early 1990's defined by Warp Records' stellar Artificial Intelligence series. My impolite response would be "fuck off". Give me polite anyday over ugly and soulless.

Global Communication's music is eerily beautiful and timeless stuff. Unfortunately, apart from a few singles and a remix album, Middleton & Prichard have not released anything more under the Global Communication name. Today they continue to produce, remix and DJ in the genres of house, techno and breaks, with occasional ambient detours taken under other monikers such as Middleton's project Amba. Nevermind. When music is this special, perhaps two albums are enough.

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