Global Communication - 76:14

Let me confess. I have a special attachment to this album.

It was the first genuine ambient techno album I introduced to my friend Ian, who up to that point had educated me in the likes of Aphex, Black Dog, Orbital and KLF.

I could never repay these four gifts, and it's been rare in my life that someone has shown me such a quartet of astonishing music, so I was proud as a dog with two tails when I lent him this, knowing what a beautiful album it is.

In fact it's the epitome of a style of music that is referred to (but rarely achieved) as "glacial ambience". And this association with icy conditions is widespread among music writers (I read of some "wintry electronica" in a review in this month's Uncut!), partly I think because the delay used on such albums gives a sense of space, like a large underground cavern, whilst the lack of significant bass parts makes everything trebly and high pitched, like er... glass, or, well, glacial sounding caves in Disney cartoons (you know the sort!), or perhaps for the more pastoral types, a petrified forest in December... You get the idea. The original theme of Tetris on the Atari ST was pretty cool in this way, by the way.

But the 76:14 album is worth all the adulation it gets.

The opening track is like walking into a giant chamber adorned with stallectites, and meanders coolly and somewhat aimlessly in wonder until the second track insinuates itself gradually, that of the famous "ticking clock".

In fact the ticking clock has a LOT to do with this album's fame. Rarely has a clock been captured so well and then integrated into a soundworld that is almost a narrative. It has the flavour of an Edwardian scientific adventure, with that clock contrasting the slowed down sci fi keyboards.

This track is easily the best thing on the album and really gives you a sense of geography, of wandering about a large house, and, perversely but most powerfully of all, of time stood absolutely still.

The rest of the tracks hypnotise and bewitch. Track 6 is a variety of foreign voices uttering the same pgrases and emphasizing the humanity in all language, though some voices are quite beautiful.

In fact, the album attunes the listener to beauty, until you hear it routinely everywhere, and this is partly the reason why it is hard to stay concentrated on the tracklisting. Instead phrases come and go, rhythms arise and expire and from the sea some voices or phrases arise that make you widen your eyes.

On track 10 for example, there are voices breathing from the deep that are quietly outshone by a woman's voice in a wordless phrase that is subtle yet brings a shiver. It performs the same function as, without for a moment sounding similar to, the top voice in Allegri's Miserere.

Despite all that, the question remains, is it the best ambient trance album? I've certainly seen it at the top of such charts, but for me, Aphex's SAW vol 2 still beats it. For why that is, I will leave to another day, but after that, Global Communication's masterpiece is a close second, and SAW 2 is not in the slightest "glacial", so the crown of defining this somewhat overused term remains here.

As for the rest of the Global Communications canon, well there are a couple of treasures but you'll do well to find them. Pentamorous Metamorphosis is a beautiful remix of a lost Chapterhouse album, whilst Remotion is very lovely. Finally and definitely not least is the
marvellous "Evolution".

The rest, everything after say 1998, is dross. Funky nonsense and the free extra disc on the remaster of 76:14 is testimony to that. Listen and feel sorry for me, as I spent a few pounds of our British money buying rare single versions of that stuff, always in the hope of "more like
76:14".

Unfortunately, I suspect there is no more where that came from.