(Discotheque/Inertia)

During the late nineties, there were often moments where the hyper-prolific Somerset-based production duo of Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard appeared to never stand still for an instant, with fingers seemingly in virtually every slice of the electronic music pie, releasing electro-breaks as Jedi Knights, industrial-tinged techno as Reload and jungle as The Chameleon, to name just a few of their seemingly ever-increasing aliases during that period. While over the ensuing years Tom Middleton has risen to an enviable position in the high-profile DJ pantheon (balancing considerable exposure with maintenance of credibility, and wisely not spreading his efforts too thin) and Mark Pritchard has released his own well-received solo efforts under the moniker Troubleman, in many senses, this album effort under their downtempo / ambient-oriented alias Global Communication has remained their most defining and constantly-referenced work. Originally released during the height of the ‘ambient house’ boom in 1994, ‘76:14’ (the numerical title referring to the album’s total running time) was hailed alongside the likes of The Orb’s ‘Adventures In The Ultraworld’ and the KLF’s ‘Chill Out’ as a seminal example of the genre, and certainly exerted a tangible influence upon the work of many ambient / chillout outfits that would follow in its wake. While ‘76:14’ has been unavailable for years due to ‘contractual difficulties’ (a situation that in many senses has simply fuelled the amount of mystique surrounding it), this long-overdue reissue on UK-based imprint Discotheque presents the original album in its entirety alongside a second disc of long-deleted and extremely rare tracks taken from various other 12”s released by the duo as Global Communication.

Opening track ‘4:02’ (each individual track title adopting the numerical system deriving the album’s title) starts things off in electronic film-score territory that sits in a very similar space musically to Vangelis’ spectral icy score for ‘Blade Runner’, with brooding synthethised strings tracing their way over a beatless backdrop of distant electronic hums and vast bass pads, before the distant howl of jet engines and the wash of gently-trickling water ushers in ‘14:31’s slow epic wander through twinkling ambient electronics, breathy synth pad trails and melodic chords, a sense of world-weary melancholy that calls to mind some of Orbital’s widescreen landscapes bleeding through as the slow ticking of a clock slowly bubbles up from the depths, providing the track’s rhythmic centre below the soft fog of trailing keyboards. ‘9:39’ ventures out towards ominous ambient dread, the distant sound of thunder gathering slowly around eerie dubbed-out vocal chatter and beeping sonar-like tones as breathy synthesised vocal tones trail into the foreground around vast building synth chords and what sounds like the rush of wind howling, while ‘7:39’ injects some skittering breakbeats rather unexpectedly after this extended ambient passage, brooding bass synths adding a ghostly sense of electro-funk as Phillip Glass-esque keyboard arrangements assemble themselves around a backdrop of crashing beats that resolves itself into a hiphop crawl that certainly calls to mind references with today’s Vienna downbeat massive. ‘8:07’ in many senses represents this album’s gorgeous centrepiece, with delicate guitar inflections that hint at the Edge circa 1984’s ‘Unforgettable Fire’ trailing over a vast backdrop of Eno-esque epic synth orchestration and fluttering ambient house rhythms, the entire mood shifting from ecstatically uplifting to pensively brooding as the deep analogue synth chords darken towards the track’s end, before ‘4:14’ injects a stray hint of prog-rock melancholy that calls to mind Amorphous Androgynous’ criminally-underated ‘The Isness’, rippling keyboards trailing their way through a gossamer backdrop of distant chiming tones, warm deep bass and the slow sound of breathing.

After the predominantly beatless/downtempo listening experience offered by the first disc, the second disc here certainly takes a different musical tack, beginning with 1997’s 12” single ‘The Groove’, which could very easily pass itself as contemporary nu-jazz from the likes of Compost and Exceptional, with an elastic live funk bassline making its way below jazzy keyboard runs and Brazilian samba-meets-house rhythms, while ‘The Way (Secret Ingredients remix)’, also released by the duo that year ventures out into eleven minutes of stripped-down deep house that calls to mind the sorts of atmospheres they would later explore as Cosmos, cut-up female soul vocal fragments spinning over a crisp backing of tech-house rhythms and vaguely Detroit-tinged strings. ‘Incidental Harmony’ meanwhiles ventures into deep ambient dub that calls to mind The Orb, vast bass pads building up beneath pulsing house rhythms as a thick swaggering dub bassline snakes its way around twinkling keyboards, ambient strings and flickering electro textures, while ‘Sublime Creation’ places slow hiphop breakbeats beneath an epic synthscape that almost sounds like it could have come from the BBC’s ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’ TV series.

While there’s no disputing the considerable significance of ‘76:14’ upon its original release, eleven years on from this event the biggest obstacle in its path is the fact that its contents have invariably dated during the ensuing period, and in a manner similar to some of The Orb’s work during that period, in some cases not all that well. While albums such as ‘76:14’ and ‘Adventures In The Ultraworld’ certainly set up a template that multitudes would follow, many of the synth sounds and beats here now sound mined-to-death and overfamiliar, and while many of the arrangements here are still well-considered, there’s perhaps the occasional creeping suspicion that things might be drifting a little too far towards incense shop ‘chillout’ at some points here. A well-overdue re-release that might end up meaning more to those were originally ‘there’ – that guy crashed out back there on the lounge with all the Pete Namlook records is going to be stoked.