Burial — Untrue
So here is the sophomore effort, the first thing that hits you with Untrue is the space in the music, each element is given it’s space to move and breath in a startlingly wide sound world that seems a world away from the creators Dub/Drum&bass and Garage influences. After the incidental intro track the first song is the epic Archangel. A classic underwater woodblock drum loop is wrapped up in distant synth sweeps and crackling radio interference. The central use of voice on this record is it’s defining feature and Archangel is a case in point. The repetitive refrain is pitchshifted and manipulated stripping all particulars from it leaving only the "Voice" in it’s content. This is the effect that Burial has on all his voices, they become detached/disembodied echoes and signifiers of events unknown this gives his music a hugely powerful quality that is rarely encountered.
The 12" single Ghost Hardware takes several snippets of female voice and constructs a landscape of detached emotion that scarcely needs the relatively simple beat to accompany it. The ever present crackle of vinyl throughout most of the album is - according to the artist - to give the impression of pirate radio stations. For me it also brings to mind the concept of "Tuning in" to unconscious voices either in ourselves or in our environment. There are less structured tracks on Untrue like Endorphin, Etched Headplate and Shell of light where the rhythms are looser and the music relies on the delicate play of voice, strings and concrete sound, for a vaguely commercial album Untrue demonstrates a wide variety of distinctly avant-garde production techniques.
The albums title track is an utterly uncanny affair with a simple Garage beat and wholly Other male vocal. The voice seems to come from some other place (the past? The future?…) and speaks in short simple sentences that contain in their simplicity a lifetime of emotion. "This is the way I feel inside…and it’s all because you lied".
Burials music is utterly unique in today’s electronic music, it has set itself apart from Dubstep and forged it’s own niche which crosses boundaries urban music rarely does. Language and The Word are central to Burials sound as is that signature use of space. The Wire recently tried to apply the Derridean term Hauntology to Burial, claiming that their sound and in particular the voice’s signify the spectre of events that never took place (In this case emancipation through rave culture in the 90s) that Haunt the music and desire for reassessment or second coming. I would dismiss this notion as a misappropriation. Burials music does not contain the spectre of a lost present derived from the point rave died in the UK, it’s is longing and it does look back, but only in the sense of mourning the lost object, that time in 1990 where the people involved thought that anything was possible. Burials music is thus haunted by the more everyday feelings of melancholy and nostalgia in the very real sense of these words, and this is a far more human condition.