Global Communication, 76:14

Global Communication's 76:14 ranks somewhere near Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. II in the pantheon of classic ambient albums — which is to say, near the very top. Released in 1994, the album, whose title doubles as its running length, was the lone longplayer to come from Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard's headiest alias. (They also recorded deep electro-funk as Jedi Knights, Link & e621 and Reload & e621; both went on to solo careers in deep house and experimental breakbeat music, respectively.) '70s forebears like Brian Eno and Vangelis inform the duo's measured pacing and their emphasis upon the tone color of warbly electronic sounds; the opening "4:02" is obviously rooted in both Ambient 1: Music for Films and the Blade Runner soundtrack (or at least, it would be if something so ethereal could have roots), and those drifting, wavering lines continue to lace 76:14 like silvery ribbons.

Global Communication's distinguishing factor is the way that they use breakbeats to give rhythmic life to their tracks. (They weren't the only ones to do this, of course; alongside them were the Orb, Sun Electric and Biosphere). "9:25" assembles itself, out of a mist of electronic squiggles, into a slow-mo funk groove of pitched-down drums and jazzy chords; "7:39" is a grinding, robo-disco onslaught of gummy bass and blunt percussion. You might expect that an album giving such short shrift to the expressive potential of track titles would bleed together into a soup of indistinguishable murmur, but that turns out to be not the case at all. "Maiden Voyage" and "Obselon Minos" are standouts in their own ways — the former for its tense, arpeggiated churn, and the latter for its plangent melody and calming grandfather clock — but they're hardly the only selections displaying individual character. Take, for instance, "9:39," in which a metallic chirping sound doubles and slips out of phase, wrapping around itself like the strands of a double helix. It's a marginal detail that somehow comes to the fore, shimmering brightly against a backdrop of ruminative chords. These 76-plus minutes are rich with that kind of detail. The album's unobtrusiveness rewards both active listening and a more passive kind, humming and hovering in the background, until a sound surfaces that you've never heard before, no matter how many times you've listened.