Playlouder - Music is the Network

Burial

Untrue

Hyperdub

And after night comes day. Or daybreak at least. Last year’s magnificent debut by the ‘mysterious’ Burial was a grim but beautiful affair like seeing the pattern of a butterfly in spattered blood in a tower block stairwell. From its artwork (housing estates seen from low orbit at night), to subject matter (‘Nightbus’, ‘Distant Lights’) to its tone (tar black and soporific) it was a fearful and crepuscular trip through the city. ‘Untrue’ is no less beautiful, thankfully but lighter in touch, the dawns first light is breaking over the metropolis. On the cover a man sits thoughtfully in a café that’s just opened, a steaming mug of tea in front of him. On the back cover the sun is up and back lighting a large municipal building that probably looked terrifying just hours earlier.

All of this intent is reflected in the music as well. Much more is made of R n’B/garage vocal samples. The ones that were muddy and almost non-existent on the previous album are forming into hazy cohesion here and the clicking, industrial beats are up in the mix and more playfully abundant. The threat of urban life is still here in the undulating bass pulse and the ribcage rattling low end. This mingles with the sweet vocal lines producing mixed feelings of dread and harmony. It is literally made to send shivers down your spine. It is the kind of sweet and sour approach used in the past by Wu Tang Clan to produce contradictory emotions. It is also a favourite technique of David Lynch’s when he will add sinister Angelo Badalamenti strings over a sweet piece of pop music to induce a sense of panic and disorientation.

But despite the rhythms being definably two/step and almost junglist in places as well and coming from the Croydon dub step scene, this album is still bafflingly but pleasingly hard to define. The apocalyptic yet workaday spoken word passages like ‘Etched Headplate’ over the hiss and pop of background noise call to mind Godspeed. The excellent ‘Archangel’ and ‘Near Dark’ border on being mainstream dance floor friendly but other tracks sound more like a house musicians take on doom or drone metal. The same harsh drum track culled from gun noise samples (though more likely from a PS3 than real weaponry) on dark tech step tracks like ‘Ghost Hardware’. Elsewhere the hauntological techniques of artists like Ghost Box or The Caretaker muddy the waters even further. Perhaps most sumptuous is ‘In McDonalds’ which showcases Burial’s talents for finding flashes of beauty in the grimy and mundane. Utterly fantastic stuff.

John Doran