by Rick Anderson
Mark Pritchard (aka Reload, aka Troubleman, aka Harmonic 33) and Tom Middleton (aka Cosmos, aka AMBA AV) have been making soulful electronic music together under the name Global Communication since the mid-'90s. Their combined love of broken and deep house, techno, hip-hop, and downtempo styles has led them to put together one of the stranger and more intriguing entries in the Fabric series, one that isn't consistently fascinating but sometimes really breaks new ground. A case in point is "Lightly Anxious," on which Maspyke raps fluidly over a slippery breakbeat and a cloudy ebb and flow of horns that sounds for all the world like an early Steve Reich composition. This segues into an enjoyable excursion in turntablism by Danny Breaks, which in turn leads down to the album's rather flabby instrumental midsection. Things pick up again with Jeremy Ellis's aptly titled "86 Verbs," which in turn leads to Motor City Soul's nicely chugging "Aura." Things stay on a relatively high level from there on out, ending on a lovely downtempo note with AMBA's "Margherita." Nice stuff.