New Burial album. More info?

I'm addicted to the journey into an alternate world that I never become familiar with, that has a narcotic euphoric effect, each time I go further into the mystery.
I'm addicted to the journey into an alternate world that I never become familiar with, that has a narcotic euphoric effect, each time I go further into the mystery.
I'm addicted to the journey into an alternate world that I never become familiar with, that has a narcotic euphoric effect, each time I go further into the mystery.
I'm addicted to the journey into an alternate world that I never become familiar with, that has a narcotic euphoric effect, each time I go further into the mystery.

Aren't we all.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y245/BlueGauze/9530e482701475488f995f27662af4ee173.jpg

I'm addicted to the journey into an alternate world that I never become familiar with, that has a narcotic euphoric effect, each time I go further into the mystery.

I'm addicted to the journey into an alternate world that I never become familiar with, that has a narcotic euphoric effect, each time I go further into the mystery.

ain't no mystery...

...you're just a retard and don't know it

Breaking news. A picture of Burial has been found.

http://weblog.signonsandiego.com/news/weblogs/music/archives/IMG_1760.JPG

He seems so soulful.

He looks a bit like C/-\lum R0b3rt W$dd3ll

The ultimate revenge.

Actually I could see Burial soundtracking a Uwe Boll movie during the creepy disco sequences.

Is that really Burial?

"It sounds straight outta 1998, when trip hop, drum n bass, and goddamn illbient were all swirling around in the air."

haha. it does. but we all love our retro culture.

Burial/Untrue are to Tricky/Photek/Urban Tribe what early-mid '80s ECM albums are to In a Silent Way/Bitches Brew/Weather Report

I can't tell because of the nasal disguise. Why don't you mail that picture to kode9 and ask him? (Xxpost)

"Burial/Untrue are to Tricky/Photek/Urban Tribe what early-mid '80s ECM albums are to In a Silent Way/Bitches Brew/Weather Report

-- Andy K"

least OTM analogy ever.

Actually you just confirmed its OTMness beyond all description. We thank you.

"Actually you just confirmed its OTMness beyond all description. We thank you.

-- Ned Raggett"

yeah because burial is so clean and overproduced just like ECM records are. it is spot on if you have no ears and no brain. which i guess sums up most of ilx. good point!

I know Andy K. Andy K. is a friend of mine. You, sir, are no Andy K.

The admittedly not-thought-out and over-generalized analogy has much more to do with chronology than production values. The basic roots, the time between releases, and that some of the ECM releases had picked up on other things along the line, just as there were developments from Maxinquaye through Burial. (Which makes Untrue = Power Spot [but not quite]?)

StanM: the nasal disguise is too good and would probably fool kode9 himself.

http://i17.tinypic.com/6pa6fra.jpg

I'm rarely going to do interviews +
I'm never going to play live +
awesome publicist =
it's too fuckin' easy

The only reason all these big IDM name guys from the late 90s onward ultimately got away with the "too shy to play out (except for this one time and I want mad cash) + awesome publicist" thing is because they occasionally made compelling music.

dubstep is basically the trip hop to grimes hip hop.

there are so many opinions in this thread, and so many of them are wrong

^^^off the money

"dubstep is basically the trip hop to grimes hip hop."

and what makes that a somewhat irrelevant comment is that, alongside bassline, they are both subgenres of uk garage.

"there are so many opinions in this thread, and so many of them are wrong"

you're so right.

what makes that a somewhat irrelevant comment is that, alongside bassline, they are both subgenres of uk garage.

...where does 2step fit into your neat little summation or the breakstep to dubstep tip from nu skool breaks. Where also does tearout, the big brother of bassline also out of nu skool breaks come in or how about 4x4 in relation to house ???

still thinking linear huh ???

how about dubstep is 'roots' to reggaes 'dancehall'...

"and what makes that a somewhat irrelevant comment is that, alongside bassline, they are both subgenres of uk garage."

are you martin clark? what a literal reading of my (pretty obvious, and not exactly new) analogy.

"..where does 2step fit into your neat little summation or the breakstep to dubstep tip from nu skool breaks. Where also does tearout, the big brother of bassline also out of nu skool breaks come in or how about 4x4 in relation to house ???"

2 step was the dominant type of ukg dickhed

nu skool breaks had minimal relation to ukg except sounding a bit like breakstep

"what a literal reading of my (pretty obvious, and not exactly new) analogy."

tell me about it bruv!

If Burial made a modern-day Power Spot that would be quite an achievement!

2 step was the dominant type of ukg dickhed

...says who ???

was so solid garage or 2 step ??? was mj cole 2step not garage and who was more dominant...

dominant like how oh wizened fucktard...

...school me up buddy

nu skool breaks had minimal relation to ukg except sounding a bit like breakstep

breakstep was as much nu skool as it was garage. darquan and zed bias sound were so interchangeable with a lot of cyberfunk, rat, hardcore beats stuff like quest, deekline and narrows which came out of nuskool that led onto the storming productions style of sound

...you cant say they never influenced each other

and what exactly was zed bias ???... 2 step or garage or breakbeat garage or breakstep or what and what then about daluq and phuturistix ???

kinda destroys the clean lines you're trying to draw eh ???

Well, I'm halfway through the album, so I'm going to quietly tiptoe around the debate to say that this album is absolutely destroying me, wow.

I finally got round to hearing this today and the vocals just ruined the whole mood of it for me. I didn't get past track 3 or 4 I think.

Actually I'm siding with Bass here. Sure there was overlap between these scenes but 2-step was the dominant sound of UKG.

Saying "Well Zed Bias was all these things" is the equivalent of saying "doesn't 4 Hero going from hardcore to jungle to broken beat mean all these genres are impossible to distinguish?" Like, duh, artists can change genres. It's to Zed Bias's credit that he actually did make quite a few records on the border - e.g. "Ring the Alarm" is 2-step but also breakbeat garage, albeit probably not breakstep. Nonetheless, his career path as Zed Bias follows a pretty clear trajecory: 2-step in 1999/2000, 2-step/breakbeat garage crossover in 2001, breakbeat garage, jungle and broken beat ever since.

The truth is that while a couple of artists flirted with crossover between breakbeat garage and nu-skool breaks (Stanton Warriors most prominently), most of the prominent artists in the latter genre (Tayo, Bushwacka, Rennie Pilgrem, Adam Freeland, Chris Carter, Tipper, Bill Brewster, Plump DJs, Atomik Hooligans... the list goes on) never had anything to do with garage at all.

Stanton Warriors are one of the most interesting cases. Their absolute best stuff was their early work when they were still some weird speed garage act messing with breaks - see "Too True" and especially the astonishing "Determined" (if anyone has an MP3 of this please hit me up), plus those early remixes of Basement Jaxx, Jocelyn Brown, Busta Rhymes... and then the moment they started drifitng towards breaks (with "Da Virus" and everything that came afterwards) they went downhill precipitously (their last great production moment probably being their remix of Fatboy Slim's "Demons").

If anything, I'd argue breakbeats could only be successfully incorporated into UK garage when the people involved appeared unaware that a fully-fledged breakbeat scene could exist. "138 Trek" had such a negative impact on the scene in that sense (though as a track it's okay).

Sure there was overlap between these scenes but 2-step was the dominant sound of UKG.

to my mind, garage of the 'so solid' variety was the dominant sound of UKG and there is little difference between that and current grime just a name change. The cheesy 2 step and shitty remixes was more reminiscent of UK r'n'b...

...yeah ok so I'm glad to hear someone admit there was overlap and i would contend more overlap than between d'n'b and garage. I mean how many drum and bassheads or junglists ever made garage or 2 step or mixed them together in their sets cos the thing is, nu skool and garage were both around the same bpm and blended well together, maybe not the outright funk shit like 'TCR' 'against the grain' and 'supercharged' but why suddenly is there this lineage thing from jungle to 2 step to dubstep without including the breaks heads ???

...like WTF ???

and i never rated 138 trek, for me it was all about this...

Neighbourhood - Zed Bias featuring Nicky Prince & MC Rumpus

the thing with burial is, if you never liked or heard garage beats you'd think he was on some next level shit...

...but if you had, then his beats would annoy the fuck out of you like they do me

artists can change genres.

...not in dubstep you cant ;P

you actually have to change names and create a new imprint...

...just ask scuba or caspa or scarecrow or tech itch or intex systems yadda yadda yadda

option to refocus the conversation- i was really just wondering about people's thoughts on the new Burial album. is there anyone else out there who's really not buying the whole "it's more of the same, yes- b-b-but it's Burial's inimitable style! and it's refined!" Sherburne party line... cause frankly i'm just hearing more of the same, and it's kind of weak and dead sounding, and not in a good way. i don't hear refining or development. maybe i'm being impatient and need to listen more, but that only usually happens when i'm hearing something different, and i hears little difference here. and also, that uncut interview- it kind of killed Untrue a little for me. the fact that he was so explicit and spot on about his sound- i mean it's nice to hear an artist articulate for once, but it also adds an element of predictability to the whole mess... know what i mean?

the good thing about burial is, he hopefully has refocused some shine on ol skool garage and people who for whatever reason may have been so into d'n'b or whatever and missed it the first time round can now go back with renewed interest and checkout some of the best shit to ever come out of the UK beatwise...

... FWIW burials sound is hardly inimitable. I just think people can't be arsed cloning it cos it is a dead end sound

I mean seriously where else can you take it and without kode9's masterful hand behind the scenes why bother ???

"to my mind, garage of the 'so solid' variety was the dominant sound of UKG and there is little difference between that and current grime just a name change. The cheesy 2 step and shitty remixes was more reminiscent of UK r'n'b..."

pollywog you're somewhat off the mark in several areas here.

1) So Solid Crew used 2-step beats, not grime beats. The "grime beat" as such didn't really exist until the very end of 2001 at the earliest - probably the earliest examples being Wiley's "I Will Not Lose", Musical Mob's "Pulse X" and maybe More Fire Crew's "Oi". The difference can be heard in the way grime abandons 2-step's combination of irregular kicks with lots of snares and hi-hats, and moves to a much heavier drum sound ("I Will Not Lose" is pretty much all kicks, with just one snare). On So Solid Crew's "Fuck It" mix-cd (released at the beginning of 2002) you can really hear how the darker, MC-led end of the scene was grasping for a new sound. Most of the tracks still have 2-step beats (as per the first So Solid Crew album), but then there's a bunch of four-to-the-floor tracks, soca-beat tracks (e.g. K2 Family's "Bouncin' Flow") and breakbeat garage tracks. Amidst this "I Will Not Lose" really stands out - not least because it may have been the first track where the 8-bar set-up is really clearly displayed. But also because the frisky vibe of 2-step (which still characterised So Solid Crew stuff, if less obviously than for, say, Sunship) is pretty much totally absent. Compare "I Will Not Lose" to Pay As U Go Kartel's "Know We", co-produced by Wiley perhaps six months before, and the difference is pretty clear. (actually a rather prescient proto-grime track was the "Destruction Remix" of Pay As U Go Kartel's "Champagne Dance", although at the time I thought it sounded like an Adam F production). Someone may be able to think of an even earlier example than "I Will Not Lose" - I'd be interested to hear of it if so.

2) How much 2-step did you actually hear anyway? A whole bunch of it sounded nothing like R&B. To whit:

3) "Neighbourhood" is a straight 2-step track! There is nothing remotely breakbeat about it! A brilliant track to be sure...

""I mean how many drum and bassheads or junglists ever made garage or 2 step""

A whole bunch actually, especially a lot of the early producers who came up with the 2-step sound - in fact both sonically and historically you could make a very convincing argument that to say that there was a coterie of interconnected producers responsible for 2-step, a core of former hardcore/jungle producers who'd been there since the early 90s, got disillusioned with drum & bass, shifted over to garage and almost immediately started pushing towards what became the 2-step sound.

So who are these producers? Producers like Steve Gurley, who was in Foul Play and Rogue Unit... or Chris Mack, who was Potential Bad Boy, and also worked with Anthill Mobm who were a hardcore act and then a garage act... As were Nu Class A/NCA Experience (who went hardcore -> blissy drum and bass (got remixed by Rogue Unit) --> speed garage --> 2-step).... Timmi Magic from the Dreem Teem was a hardcore and jungle producer, while Mikee B from the Dreem Teem was in Top Buzz and the Van Kleef with garage label Social Circles head Jason Kaye, who also recorded with Chris Mack and/or Steve Gurley as Ordinary People (in fact as Van Kleef Mikee B and Kaye did an amazing remix of Foul Play's "Being With U" - connections everywhere!). Other more random examples: MJ Cole used to help produce drum & bass for artists on SOUR.... Jonny L was behind the Truesteppers... I could go on but i imagine you get my point.

Tim Finney. Like a diamond in a thread of utter shit.

^^^bass. Like a pig rolling in shit and loving it. you stink

So then Tim, grime is now the dominant form of garage ??? And to be honest I wasn't talking about the beats. Just how the garage mc's like roll deep still sound the same, call themselves grime but nothings changed except the beats and it's as though 'garage' as a genre doesn't exist now. Take hyphy as a subset of hiphop and equate it to what happened with garage /grime. Hiphop as a parent genre will never be replaced by its lesser offshoots like hyphy but garage did. Somewhere along the way garage/2 step died and that is what burial mourns, that is what his beats echo. A ghostly shadow of its former past struggling to find an identity as a new entity. Ask a ghost what it thinks it is. It's not human but does it still think it is out of ignorance. Dead but don't know it ???

The other thing is i have always differentiated between 2step as UK r'n'b with the likes of sunship, misteeq, shola ama, craig david being more song orientated and mainstream driven with garage being more crew based MC driven and from the streets. 'Neighbourhood' being, i dunno take your pick really. I'd say it was garage you say 2 step as a subset of garage. Just goes to show how OTM zed bias was. Even that kosheen- hide u remix he did was fairly decent. As for a lot of other cheesy 2step remixes of crap pop songs, best not to mention those except to say thats what killed a lot of the vibe for me.

With regards to the shift of producers there were also those who went on to breaks and pioneered that sound. The botchit and scarper crew, T-power freqnasty, aquasky, autobots etc...

The point being while the producers may have jumped around. In the clubs and for the lesser DJ's who spun out to the masses garage mixed more with breaks than d'n'b. D'n'b heads were usually a hardcore bunch of elitist wankers who only played hardcore d'n'b. I can honestly say i didn't get to dubstep via d'n'b i got there via nu skool breaks and garage and so did most of my mates who converted to the big apple and horsepower sound early.

great thread

to me, the NSB and garage things were totally separate. NSB basically had nothing to do with house, and even comparatively little to do with jungle compared to 2-step. tim did a nice job running down alot of the jungle=>2-step production ties, but in an even more generalized manner check how many 2-step tracks used identical samples or even recreated old school jungle tracks (off the top of my head i can remember "worries in the dance", "super sharp shooter", the fugees "ready or not", etc etc all of which shows that direct debt to jungle). there was some crossover with modern D&B and NSB around 01 or so (man, i cant remember the label or the artists on it that springs immediately to mind, i know itll hit me later...) which i find to be the most close relation of NSB to anything else. breakbeat garage to me seemed like the same set of influences as 2-step, but with the emphasis on the jungle roots moreso than the house roots (which in some tracks might be nearly completely removed, some of Deekline's stuff falls in here). NSB and more modern D&B were like the bad offshoots of the more interesting parts of the hardcore=>jungle=>2-step path.

to me, the NSB and garage things were totally separate. NSB basically had nothing to do with house, and even comparatively little to do with jungle compared to 2-step

did you, when this shit first came out ever listen to breakstep, breakbeat garage, speed garage, 4X4 garage, prog house, tearout and bassline which all crossed over into breaks and back again...

...it's so easy to draw lines now and exclude stuff but at the time d'n'b was an exclusive beast of a genre with not much room for anything else courtesy of the massive egos of many in the scene aqnd cos of the extreme bpm's it reached

all those other genres were mixable and has been mentioned woith the stantons they did it to superb effect on stanton sessions 1...

...nuskool was/is not bad. It was/is funky and danceable at its best and tired and plodding at its worst. One thing about burial is there aint much funk in it and barely danceable so does that make it tired and plodding ???

...time will tell

great thread

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Sunday, 25 November 2007 20:56 (1 hour ago) Link

Question: How did "Untrue" become the token dubstep album of 2007 for the indie crowd?

they all met in chicago and voted on it

http://home.uchicago.edu/~jniimi/keithjessmatos.JPG

This album's pretty good. I liked the first one too.

Just so I don't feel left out here, there are like a hundred people internationally who can list the identifying characteristics of dubstep, 2 step, uk garage, breaks, whatever the hell breaks subgenres keep getting name-checked, etc. -- right? This is the beardiest crap I've walked into in years.

I'd hazard a guess that Burial's doing well because the music is fairly immediate, accessible to a larger crowd, and plays fairly well for home listening. The fact that the mysterious background thing plays as a good soundbite for writer fodder doesn't hurt, either. Are there more than a handful of dubstep guys actually releasing albums of material rather than mixes or compilations (which usually scream "file me at the end of the CD rack")?

pollywog the important thing to note here is that jungle and drum & bass refer to slightly different things.

You're right that there was not much if any crossover between 2-step and late 90s/early 00s drum & bass - the point being that the *jungle* producers that went into 2-step garage did so at the moment or even before the moment that it turned into drum & bass, possibly alienated by the directions the scene was taking for reasons both sonic and social.

If you're comparing 2-step to, say, Bad Company, then of course you're not going to hear much crossover. You need to go back to the hardcore and jungle records of 92-95 really - e.g. Fabulous Baker Boys' remaking Jonny L's "Hurt U So" into speed garage track "Oh Boy", Future Underground Nation remaking DJ Tactix's "The Way" etc.

As for the role of 2-step, I think Bass's original point is correct here: it was 2-step that really made UK Garage into something sustainably distinct from normal house and garage per se, it was the moment that the link to "garage" in the traditional sense became tenuous. It was also UK Garage's high water mark commercially and creatively... for all of grime's qualities, the 2-step era had a shitload more brilliant tracks - perhaps largely because its relatively improved commercial standing made it more economically viable to make the music. Finally, MC-based garage and dubstep both emerged as substrains of 2-step, both taking quite a while to find their own distinct beat-matrix (grime doing so properly in 2002, dubstep not really doing so until 2004 - people who pretend that Horsepower Productions and El-B were on some totally different tip to the rest of garage are just being revisionist).

Arguably the reason that dubstep and grime prospered as genres in their own right is precisely because they remained faithful to 2-step's primary rhythmic emphasis of jittery syncopation (c.f. the relatively smoothed out flow of breakbeat, which is why breakbeat garage and breakstep were and only ever could be cross-pollinated sub-genres).

Finally, the 2-step sound was actually much more resilient than people give it credit for, pretty much dominating "garage" from late 1997 to early 2002. That's four and a half years. Compare that to jungle, grime and dubstep where no particular rhythmic matrix has been able to survive and prosper for nearly so long, let alone remain progressive and mutational for that entire period (c.f. late-era drum & bass, where trudgy post-techstep beats have only survived due to the creative stagnation o the scene).

"Just so I don't feel left out here, there are like a hundred people internationally who can list the identifying characteristics of dubstep, 2 step, uk garage, breaks, whatever the hell breaks subgenres keep getting name-checked, etc. -- right? This is the beardiest crap I've walked into in years."

Well this is precisely why I think the notion that Burial's success rests on him crafting elegies to "dead" sounds and scenes is so difficult to sustain.

I'd say the vocal element (along with his ambient/atmospheric arrangements) would be the dividing line for this album.

You either like them or you don't.

Personally I do, but if I was handing this to someone unfamiliar with UK garage I would ask them if they like trip-hop.