Artist: Global Communication
Album: Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis
Label: Dedicated
Year: 1993
Review of the 1998 reissue: In an interesting move, Pentamerous was not available for some years as a true Global Communication stand-alone release, for the very reason that it was never intended to be that in the first place. Instead, this five-track effort (thus the name) was in fact nothing less than a complete makeover of the duo's labelmates Chapterhouse, specifically their second and final album, Blood Music. Chapterhouse had taken its incipient interest in ambient and generally calmer techno music to a certain extent on the album, resulting in some intriguing fusions, but entrusted Global Communication to do a remix job that originally appeared as a bonus second disc with the U.K. CD version. Happily one doesn't need to know or be immediately familiar with Blood Music to enjoy Pentamerous as it is. While the album is now inevitably a product of its time through and through -- progressive techno crossed with polite breaks and beats and a dab of dark, moody atmospherics -- it's still an enjoyable-enough listen. Chapterhouse's presence is mostly suggested by the very occasional vocal sample or hint of melody elsewhere -- the original album itself has more than five tracks, and there's no real sense that Pentamerous follows Blood Music point for point. When used, those original parts can have very interesting effect -- a heavily processed guitar part becomes the central melody on "Gamma Phase," surrounded by both despairing, alienated sonics and a straightforward, lovely synth string arrangement. Some of Global Communication's efforts seem to reach even farther -- the In the Nursery-reminiscent piano parts on "Alpha Phase," hints of Aphex Twin-style electronic spookiness at various points (little surprise, of course, given Middleton's background). Ultimately, Pentamerous Metamorphosis feels and sounds like a footnote for both bands, but it's a footnote worth taking the time to consider. -- Ned Raggett, All Music Guide
Artist: Red House Painters
Album: Early Demos (2 CD set)
Label: N/A
Year: 1989-1992
-- Disc 1 --
-- Disc 2 --
Review of 'Down Colorful Hill':
Not a proper debut as such, Down Colorful Hill instead comprises the demo recordings which won Red House Painters their contract with the 4AD label, released here with minimal overdubbing. Regardless, the group has already reached full maturity; these lengthy, ponderous songs are remarkably evocative portraits of a distinctly tortured psyche -- Mark Kozelek forgoes the camouflage of metaphor to lay his soul on the line, and the honesty of his craft is both beautiful and disturbing. -- Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
Artist: Tim Story
Album: The Perfect Flaw
Label: Hearts of Space
Year: 1994
A definitive album from this veteran composer who has quietly carved a niche for his ambient chamber music. Story's orchestrations for piano, synthesizers, oboe, cello, and clarinet are wrapped around melodies that linger and probe. Comparisons to Debussy would not be out of place, but this isn't pseudo-classical music. These are thoroughly modern atmospheres conceived with taste, skill, and subtlety. -- Billboard Magazine
Artist: Vidna Obmana
Album: The River of Appearance
Label: Projekt
Year: 1996
A "classic" in all worlds. "When does an album turn into a "classic"? Popular culture would answer: If it becomes a point of reference for others, opening up a stylistic system of its own. From a more traditional point of view, the inherent quality of a piece of music to inspire or even force others to interpret it is the key for this implies that its value transcends that of a mere subjective sensation. Thus, one could argue that “The River of Appearance” has now attained that much sought-after status in both worlds. On the one hand, there is the original, which was conceived, composed and recorded in 1996, a time when the antagonism between commercial contemporary electronic music (mostly referred to as “techno”) and its “serious” counterpart (somewhat uninspiredly dubbed IE Intelligent Electronics) had split the scene. Gone were the days, when people could either dance, chill and listen to acts like “The Orb”, without having to feel as though they were doing the music some kind of injustice. It was in this year that Dirk Serries, an autodidact who had risen from the depths of the industrial underground to more and more spacious and three-dimensional soundscapes as well as harmony and melody, rediscovered his interest in simple loop structures. Instead of the ever-more complex algorithmical and “architetectonic” works of some of his colleagues (whom the press applauded, but hardly anyone really listened to), “The River of Appearance” is an oasis of simplicity: Short, dreamy motives drift through long-drawn, fluffy chord schemes, which rotate around their own axes in a darkly sugar-coated heaven. Echoes of acoustic instruments rise like pebbles to the surface of a scantly lit pond angelic pianos, humming bass notes, brushed percussion, opaquely buzzing choral voices - and fade away again. Thanks to its puristic nature, every tone is the birth of an entire cosmos, which ebbs off into a slipstream of crystalline reverb. It is a galaxy of feminine energy there is no “must”, no boundaries, no time and no danger in allowing yourself to fall in completely. Soon, of course, this wondrous style would be copied and pasted to CDs all over the world, but this is where it began. -- Tobias Fischer, Tokafi
Artist: Alio Die
Album: Under An Holy Ritual
Label: Projekt
Year: 1992
Under an Holy Ritual is an electronic minimalism classic. It is a set of deep and dark atmospheres from Alio Die, aka Stefano Musso, one of Europe's leading minimalists. He achieves these strange experimental sounds with synths, samples, and processing techniques. Similar to the "Frippertronics" loops of Robert Fripp, Musso processes his processed sounds and samples. He starts with an incessant drone and builds vacuous atmospheres from them. He also uses silence as an element of the sound design. The atmospheres are gray and wispy, with hints of color. The deep drones connect the atmospheres to form the soundscape. This is a single soundscape with 11 movements. Each movement has at least one atmosphere. Musso's techniques allow for a cohesive and exhilarating listening adventure. This is one of the ultimate experiences to which electronic musicians aspire. -- Jim Brenholts, All Music Guide
Artist: Pulusha
Album: Isolation
Label: Evolution/Universal Language
Year: 1997
"Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton temper the bait-and-switch confusion of recent deep house forays under their heretofore strictly ambient aegis, Global Communication, by releasing this two-tracker of gorgeous flotation tank chill. Actually just Pritchard solo, Pulusha is the deepest, most mesmerizingly relaxed thing to appear under any of the Pritchard/Middleton project headings, similar to the more meditative moments of Global's 76:14 and equally as enveloping. Broken into two parts, "Isolation Part One" alone is worth the price of admission, with warm synth breaths layered snugly among building harmonic sheets that would likely be shattered to bits by the mere suggestion of a beat." -- Sean Cooper, All Music Guide
Artist: Mark Eitzel
Album: 60 Watt Silver Lining
Label: Warner
Year: 1996
"When Eitzel disbanded American Music Club, he also made a break with anything to do with alterna-rock. 60 Watt has a clean-sounding, torch-to-jazz sort of ambiance, more VH1 adult rock than MTV. Because of 60 Watt's glossy textures -- odd from someone who disowned AMC's masterful San Francisco for being 'too commercial' -- it's hard to get into this at first. But when the initial disappointment dissipates, one encounters an LP almost as formidable and somber as any of AMC's works from United Kingdom on. Sadly, Eitzel has abandoned the startling, desperate bellow that scared the bejesus out of listeners on the likes of "Kathleen" or "Ex-Girlfriend," but he's just as terse in sneering "you're worried if you remembered to use bleach to clean your needle/well so what" ("Mission Rock Resort"), or just as quietly despairing when repeating "I'm always alone" ("Sacred Heart") as on any of his previous, more desolate excursions through his trampled heart. On the lesser material, his coffee-tempered voice, evocative words, and brooding textures still jolt. On the stronger songs, such as the jaunty "Southend on Sea" and "Cleopatra Jones," the lithe "Sacred Heart" and "Always Turn Away," and the disquieting "Everything is Beautiful," his lyrical prowess softly decimates. This is best heard on the song he wants Barbra Streisand to record, the surprisingly warm "Saved," a truly moving knee-knocker that Eitzel croons as if he's about to burst into tears from loss of control as much as any sense of joy or relief. An extraordinary LP, but one that might be avoided by all but the already committed. And that would be a shame; Eitzel is as much an American original, a bag of immense and underappreciated riches, an antidote to the sterility and stupidity of modern rock." -- Jack Rabid, The Big Takeover
