Burial is such a unique artist and his music almost defies classification in any genre. His music hovers somewhere between dub, experimental electronica and psycho-acoustic phenomena. It leans more towards dub and dubstep, but often times sounds like dub played on a slow speed. Burial unearthed his sophomore album of experimental dubstep on Hyperdub last week, titled Untrue. His self-titled debut, released last year, was praised by music critics of all different tastes - even dubbed Album of the Year by The Wire magazine.
The label responsible for both albums, Hyperdub describes Untrue:
The new record is weird soul music, hypersoul, lovingly processing spectral female voices into vaporised R&B and smudged 2step garage. Voices are blurred, smeared, pitched up, pitched down and pitch bent until their content becomes irrelevant and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void.
UNTRUE continues with the first album’s crackle drenched yearning and bustling syncopations haunted by the ghosts of rave, but also reveals some new Burial treats with a more glowing, upbeat energy. UNTRUE kicks off with the skittering 2step syncopations and vocal science of ‘Archangel’, ‘Near Dark’ and ‘Ghost Hardware’, before descending into a space of radiant divas and ambience. While Burial’s first album was humid, suffocating and unrelentingly sad, UNTRUE is less sunless. Many of the tracks are so sweet, they become toxic, underscored by the almost geological rumbles of growling basslines. Whereas the mood of Burial’s first album was overpoweringly melancholy, its now better described as a downcast euphoria typified by the epic, muted optimism of the album’s last track ‘Raver’. Forget central heating. The radioactivity of this album is all that you’ll need to keep you warm this winter.
Kode 9 Mixes New Burial Music
Kode 9, friend and colleague of Burial, made a beautiful mix of Burial’s music from the new album for Mary Anne Hobbs’ radio show. Here is that mix:
If you love this and want to keep it, head over to nialler9 to read more and grab the mp3.
In an interview with FACT Mag, Burial described his own music:
“I like making tunes that maybe help people get lost in…”
“The sound that I’m focused on is more, you know, when you come out of a club and there’s that echo in your head of the music you just heard… I love that music, but I can’t make that club sort of stuff…but I can try and make the afterglow of that.”
Burial - Untrue Tracklist
CD Tracklist:
01 Untitled (0:45)
02 Archangel (3:59)
03 Near Dark (3:53)
04 Ghost Hardware (4:54)
05 Endorphin (2:57)
06 Etched Headplate (6:00)
07 In Mcdonalds (2:09)
08 Untrue (6:16)
09 Shell Of Light (4:41)
10 Dog Shelter (2:58)
11 Homeless (5:26)
12 UK (1:42)
13 Raver (4:58)
LP Tracklist:
A1. Raver
A2. Etched Headplate
B1. Homeless
B2. Shell of Light
C1. Untrue
C2. UK
C3. Endorphin
D1. Archangel
D2. Near Dark
Burial Dubstep Links
Download Burial mix by Kode 9 on nialler9
The elusive artist rarely does interviews or plays live shows (much like Richard D. James aka Aphex Twin) but he has been a bit more chatty with the imminent new release. You can read a few recent interviews with Burial:
Kode 9 interview
Dan Hancox interviews Burial for the Guardian
Fact Mag interview
Boomkat - listen to previews of 3 songs or preorder the album
Burial music space
Hyperdub music space
It’s incredibly difficult to describe music that is beyond categories and dissimilar to anything else out there. But I think this description of Burial’s music, from the FACT Mag interview, is succinct and hits some of its aspects just right:
Burial’s music uses old UK garage and rave tunes as its template, treating them as venerable traditions that now deserve the sort of love and respect that aficionados once afforded jazz or the blues. He takes the standard tropes of 2-Step and UKG - pitched-up feminine pressure and syncopated shuffle-beats - and transforms them into a crackle-shrouded pirate broadcast from some spectral, re-imagined past.
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