Global Communication interview with Mark Pritchard
Author: Guido Farnell
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Carl Cox may be living in Frankston but the release of the new Global Communication mix for London's nightclub/label Fabric reveals that Mark Pritchard has moved to Sydney. "I have been here since October and am currently sorting through immigration and all that stuff," advises Pritchard from Sydney. "All my stuff is here now and I have just finished setting up my studio. It's nice up here, great city, great weather, great food and so on but most of the time I am busy making music.
In 2004, I met a girl from Sydney when we were doing the Red Bull Academy thing in Rome. I came here to check the place out and the relationship started to get more serious. At some point you have to make a decision about these things. A long distance relationship was out of the question. I have lived in England all my life and would much rather have moved to Australia than have my girlfriend make the move to the UK. Hopefully everything will turn out fine and if it doesn't I guess both of us could move somewhere else. This is one of those things that I would have really regretted if it didn't happen. Most of my dealings are with record labels in England and I still get paid in pounds. So far it is an arrangement that's working quite well. Already I have met quite a few musicians that I would like to feature on some of my tracks. I hear that Melbourne is slightly funkier than Sydney. A few people from Melbourne are keen on getting me to do a gig down there."
Fascinated with futuristic gleam of machined Detroit techno, Pritchard worked prolifically under the guise of a variety of recording aliases including Reload, Link and Secret Ingredients way back in the early nineties. Pritchard eventually teamed up with Tom Middleton and their revered Global Communication and Jedi Knights projects went on to exert considerable influence on the mood of '90s electronica and to some extent dance music in the UK.
Without officially breaking up the duo started to focus more on their own solo work towards the end of the '90s. Yet hot on the heels of the release of the remastered version of Global Communication's chill out masterpiece '76:14' comes this mix for Fabric. On all accounts it would seem that the duo are ready to start working together again.
"We never ruled out the possibility of working together but I don't know if it will happen because everything just gets more complicated by the day. Tom is moving to Italy. He is on the verge of getting married and having a kid. If Tom were in Australia, I would hope that he would stay long enough for us to get a track completed, at least. At the end of the '90s it was just a natural progression for each of us to move on and pursue different things."
As Middleton and Pritchard move in seemingly opposite directions I wondered how this mix came about. "We used to play at Fabric about twice a year and they just asked us for a mix. It was supposed to have been a Jedi Knights mix but for legal reasons we couldn't use that name so it became a Global Communication mix. I mixed the first 11 tracks and then sent it to Tom who carried it on from there. It was actually a bit of a nightmare doing the mix. I had just got here but my records were still in a box on a ship somewhere in transit to Australia. I remember running around searching for records and borrowing records. Luckily some of the labels were happy to oblige me a copy for the mix. I just wanted to feature some of my favourite tracks that have come out in the last three years from people like Dabrye, Wajeed and Danny Breaks. In terms of new music, I am really into that sort of hip hop sound at the moment."
It is somewhat surprising to hear Pritchard talk about hip hop as these days his solo Troubleman project is profoundly influenced by Brazilian music. "The guy who runs Far Out Recordings really opened< Tags