A Quiet Glade In A Burning Forest

Side 2 of a mixtape, recorded sometime around 1997, featuring the music of Mark Pritchard & Tom Middleton in a variety of guises, but mainly Global Communication.

 

First off however is one of their remixes as Reload. The 147 Take of In Mind by Slowdive appeared on Side 1 and was recently highlighted in a typically great post by Swiss Adam over at Bagging Area. Their remix of On by Aphex Twin is a close second as my favourite remix that Mark and Tom did as Reload, but then the song is a thing of beauty to begin with so how could they possibly go wrong?

Next up is Link, one of Mark Pritchard's many, many solo projects. This remix of Arcadian by Global Communication originally appeared on Warp Records compilation Artificial Intelligence II, running to just under ten minutes. In order to squeeze it into a C90 side, I crudely faded it out halfway through. Unlikely Side 1, where I restored the minimal cut to a track, I've kept this one in to maintain the original sequencing and running time.

The Grid aka Dave Ball and Richard Norris were enjoying much-deserved success with a brace of UK hit singles, Texas Cowboys reaching #21 in October 1993 and then Swamp Thing crashing in at #11 in June 1994, peaking at #3 a month later, spending a total of 12 weeks in the Top 20. Rollercoaster didn't enjoy quite such a chart run, entering at #19 in September 1994, then #22, #42, #70 and out of the Top 100 by mid-October. It's an underrated single and contained a hidden gem in Global Communication's ambient reworking of the song. I say 'hidden' but the remix was that good that it appeared on several compilations, including Survival 2000 and respective 'best of' remix collections by Global Communication and The Grid *

 

Epsilon Phase is the closing track on Mark and Tom's radical overhaul of Chapterhouse's Blood Music album, originally released as a limited edition double CD in 1993. I discovered the Global Communication CD all on its own in the secondhand trough at Replay Records in Bristol and bought it without hesitation. It was roughly another ten years before I bought and heard the parent album by Chapterhouse for the first time!

 

Nav Katze (translates as 'Nervous Cat') were a Tokyo-based female rock group who released music between 1987 and 1997. Initially a trio, by 1994, Nav Katze were Miwako Yamaguchi and Naoko Iimura, with male producer Yuji Sugiyama as unofficial third member. Wild Horse appeared on the first of two remix compilations titled Never Mind The Distortion, in a beautiful 15-minute journey with Global Communication, easing in with synth washes and snatches of vocal before heading into more percussive territory in the latter stages. Like much of Mark Pritchard and Tom MIddleton's music from the early/mid-1990s, Wild Horse should have been all over like-minded compilations of the time but according to Discogs seems to be relatively rare.

 

* I realised when researching and writing this post that tracks 3 to 5 of this selection are the exact same sequence as the last three tracks on the aforementioned Remotion: The Global Communication Remix Album from 1995. I bought the compilation for my girlfriend at the time but I have no recollection whether I was so inspired by the running order that I was compelled to replicate it for my mixtape or if I was simply being a lazy git. Probably a bit of both and definitely no coincidence!

 

On a completely unrelated note, after 2 years, 2 months and 18 days and 685 posts, I've received my first takedown notice via Mega. It was for my recent posting of Django Django and was submitted by one of those companies that appear to specialise in actively finding and shutting down any potential infringements. I'm wondering whether my uncharacteristic decision to include the artist's name in the post and MP3 title made it easier for the bots to home in this particular Dubhed selection. 

 

Anyway, Box and Mega links have now been removed from the offending post and, in a bit of housekeeping, I'm now running a tighter ship on how long links stay up in general. Whenever I post the corresponding side of a mixtape that's appeared previously, I'll continue to add new Box and Mega links to the older post.

 

1) On (Reload Mix): Aphex Twin (1993)

2) Arcadian (Remix By Global Communication) (Edit): Link (1994)

3) Rollercoaster (The Global Communication Yellow Submarine Re-Take): The Grid (1994)

4) Epsilon Phase (Retranslated By Global Communication): Chapterhouse (1994)

5) Wild Horse (Global Mix Communication): Nav Katze (1994)

1993: Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis: 4

1993: On EP: 1

1994: Artificial Intelligence II: 2

1994: Never Mind The Distortion: 5

1994: Rollercoaster EP: 3

Side Two (45:55) (Box) (Mega)

Side One here