Tag Archive: hyperdub


Burial tunes for a broken world

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February 10, 2020

BURIAL – Tunes 2011-2019 (Hyperdub, 2019)
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“The world is falling to pieces, but some of the pieces taste good”. So wrote Adrian Mitchell in his poem ‘Peace Is Milk’, first published in his ‘Out Loud’ collection in 1968.

This remains an accurate statement even though the world is a very different place from half a century ago. Technology and technocracy have made even digital natives long for an analog age they have no direct experience of.

Allied to this is an entrenched pessimism towards the shapes of things to come. By and large, the consensus among Science Fiction writers and filmmakers is that there is little to gain from imagining what the future will be like when the present is already dystopic enough. 1984 has been and gone and the Brave New World is here and now. The plots of Black Mirror are no fiction. As William Gibson, the creator of Neuromancer, noted “The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.” Continue reading →

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The downcast euphoria of Burial

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November 5, 2007

 

 

Burial Untrue Cover

In a rare interview Burial says the new album, ‘Untrue’ has a more glowy buzz to it. Interviewer & mentor Kode 9 describes it as having a “downcast euphoria” – a very appropriate description I think.

On the cool-o-meter the reclusive figurehead of Dubstep rates pretty high. He justifies his anonymity by saying:

“I like Underground tunes that are true and mongrel ……..Underground music should have its back turned, it needs to be gone, untrackable, unreadable, just a distant light“.

‘Untrue’ certainly has what must be the coolest cover art of the year – an intriguing figure that looks like a moody alien sitting in a sparse cafe.

Personally, I don’t hear much of a glow to ‘Untrue’ but it is no less spectacular for all that.

As on his marvellous debut, the beats here are dense and oppressive. This makes it pretty heavy to take in one go, even for someone who probably listens to more melancholy music than is good for me. It conjures up a Bladerunner-like cityscape and, just as in that movie, there is an overriding sense of threat.

It’s a remarkable sound but also bleak and disconcerting.

 

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