Burial

precisely! er

dubstep ISNT about drums tho. Thats why its exciting (oddly.) Its post ecstatic dance music.

Most of the dubstep I listen to is almost entirely made up of drums and little else, save some warbley bass.

you can't put mans in a room with no sub!

(or, trying to listen to this stuff on an iPod is frustratingly incomplete)

Totally. Late last year I spent an enjoyable Plaid (yeah, they were playing dubstep) gig leaning on the subs. Felt like the bass was going to choke me.

its all about the bass pressure, best experienced in a club- its a physical thing-- much more physical than any beat--- the tracks are specifically engineered to be as massive bass wise as possible on finely tuned club systems

not surprised about plaid playing dubstep - i think one of my first thoughts when i heard "request line" was how much it sounded like plaid or two lone swordsmen.

so ... where is the deep thinker known around these parts as BOY CHILD?

I wouldn't mind hearing a whole track from this, 'cause I was not feeling the snippets linked on the other thread. There might have been some okay beats happening in there, but they're drenched in enough reverb as to be unintelligible and attack-free. Maybe I don't "get it".

"Night Bus" sample/simularity = Fennesz "Rivers of Sand"

Its just in a similar sounding minmor key I think. Same feel tho (aching melancholy)

Midnight Request Line sounds like Plaid? Do you mean harmonically or in terms of sound design? Surely not the latter. Skream's sounds on MRL strike me as far too fluttery, slightly-cheapo preset-like to merit much of a Plaid comparison. (This is not a value judgment btw).

Tim, you said that you found the beat in "Southern Comfort" to be the weakest part of the track. Do you also consider it "constipated," i.e., do you include it among the dubstep tunes that don't "generate any tension"?

hear a whole track here - http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A11818271

(albeit shitty real audio may not be worth the effort)

"Tim, you said that you found the beat in "Southern Comfort" to be the weakest part of the track. Do you also consider it "constipated," i.e., do you include it among the dubstep tunes that don't "generate any tension"? "

I guess I wouldn't go quite so far w/r/t "Southern Comfort", although there's something about the way it loops into itself which bugs me - the variation on every 8th bar is better than the usual beat. "You Hurt Me" has a v. similar beat structure but I like the beat more (also it has those awesome, albeit too sparing "DROP!" samples).

I love the rhythm programming on "Gutted" though - even though it's barely there!

In retrospect it's only "Spaceape" that is actively bad in this sense. Though i could take or leave "Prayer", and while "Wounder" works it's not for the beats.

If it was an EP along the lines of:

Distant Lights
Night Bus
You Hurt Me
Gutted
Broken Home
Forgive

... It would be unimpeachable.

does "spaceape" feature the vocal stylings of THE spaceape, the one from dubstep allstars vol 3?

because his presence on vol 3 IS "actively bad", in fact it's terrible, and i can't believe people aren't calling kode 9 out on it!

not only is it sort of embarassing - would any of these dudes rep for "dj kicks: rockers hi-fi"? - but in this case it's just ... yuck.

"Victims themselves of a close encounter / Desperate abductors, constructors / Become an infected vex / By an alien virus"?

dude ... shut the fuck up.

Yeah, the one and same. Yr right in that its just an 00s update on old skool dub poetry type stuff, but its not as outright rotten as you make out! ALTHOUGH: he could probably do with some more rhymes...

i don't think it's necessarily rotten - i really like the rockers hi-fi dj kicks! though i never dug on their albums or singles much ... i can see how it might work ... maybe the problem is that he doesn't sound NEEDED on "dubstep allstars vol 3"

Yeah, I can't even listen to vol. 3 because of spaceape; he ruins it.

Yer, I mean at Dubstep raves there is usually an mc presence (normally a less "poetic" more old skool master of ceremonies) but on the most mixes they aren't there....

I think Spaceape helps make Dubstep Allstars vol.3 much more listenable than vol.1 and 2 which were a bit boring. I completely disagree with everyone saying 'Spaceape' is the weakest track on the Burial album. I think after 'Distant Lights' its one of the strongest. Its a breath of fresh air in what is sometimes a bit claustrophic record. In fact I get the sense that his presence on the album and DA vol.3 is precisely to spoil the fun of both the instrumental (techno) purists on one hand, and urban purists on the other. Fact is, its a pretty big oversimplification to reduce Spaceape's lyrical contributions to rehashing Linton Kwesi etc.

Anyone that has heard Spaceape live recently in the UK will know that the line of argument on this thread, from carlin to finney is somewhat off the mark regarding that track. And I really wish people would stop constantly referring dubstep back to techstep. There is some substance to that contrast, but its actually such a lazy critical move to make the kind of comparisons, especially with the Burial album, which doesnt seem aimed at the dancefloor in the slightest.

Spaceape just sounds like bad Saul Williams to me, and it completely ruins the atmosphere "Distant Lights" built up by spelling everything out. It's like having Einar out of the Sugarcubes come in halfway through SAW II. This way please, sir...

"There is some substance to that contrast, but its actually such a lazy critical move to make the kind of comparisons, especially with the Burial album, which doesnt seem aimed at the dancefloor in the slightest. "

A lot of early album "techstep" wasn't either! It's not like we're talking about Bad Company!

But you are talking about 'Industry' which is basically an album composed of 12s, so far from the Burial one, whereas I think, texturally at least, this album resonates more with stuff outside the hardcore continuum.

I also think it is ridiculous to suggest that its rhythmically better or worse than early dubstep. If anything it will help attract attention back to those guys, but its clearly taken that influence in another direction altogether. El-B & Horsepower's production was always clinically clean.

The Breezeblock mix at barefiles.com is better than the album. It omits the weak tracks, has two amazing ones that aren't on the album, and great mixing. Sonewhow 'Pirates' sounds more badass on it. Maybe that's just the quality of my mp3 files though. The only great track that isn't there is 'Broken Home' which would have spoiled the dark mood anyway. Only 'Wounder' gets a bit annoying after many listens.

"wounder" is a bit monotonous (in the wrong way).

Simon Reynolds reviews Burial in the OMM
http://tinyurl.com/e78u6

Quite good review, actually. "Kenny Wheeler wilting in a Temazepam swoon."

Its synths tho isn't it? nice sentence all the same...

Interesting to see on Blissblog that he originally gave it five stars and they reduced it to four - another case of 'our readers won't be able to cope with this, so let's not make them feel obliged to listen to it'?

If I was Simon's copy editor that piece would omit the phrase "mystery-shrouded." Great imagery a few paragraphs on, though.

eg.
a beatless ache of sound threaded with the sounds of cleansing rainfall.

So how come Amazon US has never heard of this album? Are there any plans for a US release?

Very impressive, this album. Mesmerizing (= monotonous if you're not in the mood?) and threatening and stealthy and sad and ninja, just like Photek & Source Direct's best bits, but also very different - thanks for this thread, ILM!

It ends vey well, the last three or four tracks are brilliant (esp "Pirates"- maximum rollage, more evil and propulsive than elsewhere)

pdf, they have it on insound.com!

http://search.insound.com/search/showrelease.jsp?p=INS29940

I finally got round to giving this a go last night, heard two tracks and was pretty impressed. Good thing "Burial" was the name of an good old Death In June LP or this thread and this music would have completely passed me by.

Another one of those threads I have posted on yet will probably get the f***** record (and kick myself for not getting sooner) next year.

I passed this up in Hard Wax (they're loving the Dubstep btw!) for an old Carl Craig album & other stuff. If that Breezeblock mix is better... then maybe I'm not as excited about this as say a Skream or Digital Mystikz album after all.

Is it very wrong that Night Bus reminds me of SPK's Zamia Lehmanni and Peter Gabriel's Passion/Temptation Of Christ soundtrack? Because it does.

Thing is tho is a Skream album not going to be pretty hard-going? 45 mins of Fruity-looped arpeggios and cheeky-chappy interpolations of dub? I mean he's a fun DJ, and his best choons are excellent, (and I know he's working with vocalists- Warrior Queen I think...? on his artist album) but all the same I suspect this may grate in a way Burial's shizzle doesn't...

My friend Catherine (who sometimes posts here and sometimes on Dissensus) loves the Burial album, but said she had no way of placing this music in historical context, so i said I'd make her a compilation of different stuff that Burial vaguely reminds me of or seems connected to. This is what I came up with:

1. Nu-Birth - Anytime (Dem 2's Nice & Sleazy Mix)
2. Horsepower Productions - Fist of Fury
3. Skream - Midnite Request Line
4. Wiley - Pick Yourself Up (Target Instrumental Mix)
5. Aaliyah - We Need A Resolution
6. Tricky ft. PJ Harvey - Broken Homes
7. Donnacha Costello - Dry Retch
8. Pole - Tanzen
9. Rhythm & Sound - Truly (Vladislav Delay Remix)
10. Dillinja - The Angels Fell
11. Hidden Agenda - Dispatch #2
12. DJ Shadow - You Can't Go Home Again
13. Johnny Dark - HCD 2

nice mix- no Photek tho?

This album is a complete and total mindfuck. That bass is so unsettling at the beginning, and it seems to set the tone! I'm glad Tim posted that list because I find myself thinking "how on earth did music get to this point?" Fantastic stuff, even Cabaret Voltaire couldn't do better.

Burial (album stream)

er... gone already for some reason.

Amazingly I've read this entire thread and am still somehow none the wiser as to what the album actually sounds like. Intrigued though.

The streaming link is still working for me. tjaml upi fandango.

excellent rec, gets stronger as it goes along, def. hanging round some of the same old haunts as maurizio/rhythm + sound, which can never ever be a bad thing

I bought it Monday night. It sounds like a cross between Photek and Witchman, but weaker than both. Once again the UK hype squad fails me.

Come on, don't go "I don't get it (album/hype)" after just one day. Allow it some time, it gets under your skin. Well, it worked that way for me anyway.

It's very much failing to get under my skin after repeat plays... It's alright but I'm just not finding it vital or surprising enough to draw me in more fully.

Tim F is v.much OTM calling it a padded ep because there are (frustratingly) brilliant _bits_ on it. But the whole seems to fail somehow where it shouldn't have.

And it really would have helped to have had ALL of South London Boroughs on it because the title track would have been far & away the best cut on it (then Southern Comfort, then others) on a sound design level. The less Dubstep-y this gets the weaker, less atmospheric and menacing and emotional it feels. Yet the gauzy more ambient stuff seems to be getting the unfair share of the praise.

I'd have a hard time rating it below a 7, yet vast chunks of this lag far, far behind the truly effective parts in real musical power. Whilst never ever being hard to digest or bland or anything at any time it still ends up not feeling _really great_ either.

I think the potential is there, but it just needs stronger hooks/melodies/tunes or something else.

Doesn't compare even remotely in imagination to darker Tricky, Massive Attack or FSOL (circa "Dead Cities") or acres of other dread Jungle... If Hyperdub didn't exist and seem fresh & untested for it I'd expect this to have been released on Lux Nigra.