Global Communication – Chapterhouse Retranslated by Global Communication – Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis (EVOR08)

‘1993’s Chapterhouse Retranslated By Global Communication ‎– Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis is a full-album reinterpretation of the shoegaze band Chapterhouse’s Blood Music LP by Global Communication, the duo of Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton who produced some crucial pieces of early-90s electronic music. With its wide-ranging ambient soundscapes reminiscent of The Orb and inventive beat-tracks in the vein of contemporaries The Black Dog and Aphex Twin, Chapterhouse Retranslated By Global Communication ‎– Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis fully deserves the title of cult-classic.

The five ‘Phases’ of this record sprawl out over more than an hour. Given the manner in which these pieces overlap and unfurl, it is very easy to lose yourself in the mind-expanding sonics of Global Communication’s music. Ghosts of Chapterhouse’s shoegaze originals can be heard at points – a skyscraping atmosphere here, a dreamily beautiful guitar lick there – but really this is a record which very much bears the mark of Global Communication. From the stargazing electronics which usher in the record to the expansive, kosmische-influenced closer ‘Epsilon Phase’, Pritchard and Middleton guide you to something that sounds very much like sonic enlightenment – a state that this reissue’s remastering job, which has been done from the original DAT tapes, serves to accentuate still further.

In 1993 Global Communication took the bold decision to remix the entirety of Chapterhouse’s Blood Music LP. The resulting record, Chapterhouse Retranslated By Global Communication ‎– Blood Music: Pentamerous Metamorphosis, is an ambient masterpiece which now gets its dues via this new remastered reissue.’

2LP / Evolution