Burial remixes Thom Yorke

i liked the bloc party remix, to my surprise, but this... not so much. i haven't been able to get on with thom yorke's voice since i was about 14. i then spent three whole years at uni arguing with what felt like *everyone* i knew, to the effect that 'kid a' was not, as they maintained, the most mind-blowing, progressive, and deep album ever recorded. jesus. if i never have another kid a argument ever again it will be too soon.

i still think radiohead's sleeve/website artwork, politics, and so on are pretty on point.

This load of remixes as a whole though are a great improvement on his rather underwhelming album (ie- they fix what was most wrong with it, not Yorke's voice which as an instrument describing a certain kind of aching wounded baby-grizzling misery is unparalleled, but rather the thinly engineered sound design which was slapdash and unsatisfying...)

Has anyone heard the track he did with Modeselektor from their latest album? He definitely ought to do an entire record with them.

Though of the recent set of remixes, the Burial one is by far the weakest, offering little either to recontextualize the song (he leaves the vocals pretty much intact) and regurgitating his (now over?)familiar sample set once more... and nowhere near as good as the Bloc Party remix, which is outstanding (largely because he reconfigures the song, chipmunks certain elements of the vocal, transforms Kele Okereke's indie angst into a sad-eyed rave referencing grandeur... )

modeselektor did a full collaboration with thom yorke on their new album in a dubstep influenced style that I thought was really good.

Edit - lol just realised that was mentioned directly above me

Yeah "White Flash"... probably the most beautiful piece of music he's been involved in for a very long time, genuinely affecting... Proof if any be needed that he needs a firm hand to avoid slipping into laziness as has been readily apparent with his main band for a long while actually (ie: pieces which slip into the useless indolent no-man's land between extended tracks built on ebb and flow and build and release and actual songs developed around more rigorous verse/chorus forms)

I've got a surgeon mix with a track on it that sounds like Thom Yorke, is that on there? The first line of the lyrics is something like 'time is running out...'.

Its perfectly fine, Burial is an excellent craftsman. But at some point, some juncture fairly imminently, he must change his palette of percussive sound sources, as surely they have been rinsed absolutely dry?

I must say, I heard the Bloc Party remix (a good record, no doubt) the other day on a playlist I'd made up, then forgotten the content of. For two seconds, I was thinking "I know this....wtf is it", until I realised that it was that very same crackly sound....

gek-opel said:

Its perfectly fine, Burial is an excellent craftsman. But at some point, some juncture fairly imminently, he must change his palette of percussive sound sources, as surely they have been rinsed absolutely dry?

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I think we're there already. This is the first track of his that I haven't liked at all It's basically exactly the same as Near Dark, which was one of the weaker tracks off the album. Shame, 'cos the Bloc Party thing was among the best stuff he's done, but this is Burial-by-numbers.

hucks said:

I think we're there already. This is the first track of his that I haven't liked at all It's basically exactly the same as Near Dark, which was one of the weaker tracks off the album. Shame, 'cos the Bloc Party thing was among the best stuff he's done, but this is Burial-by-numbers.

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Its the problem which many producers who manage to develop a totally inimitable sound suffer though, but even more so with Burial as his sound is so overly personalised and specific. He just about managed to develop the sound enough on "Untrue" by focusing on vocals so much and muffling the drums, but its hard to see where he would take it from here. Possibly changing his set up or getting some new samples or working on that "darkside" album might be the key though. Not that it necessarily matters whether he runs out of creative steam, its almost inevitable with someone who manages to nail such a unique sound within dance music so rapidly.

but its hard to see where he would take it from here.

An actual garage album would be good.

The darkside LP would be a good second choice but I doubt he'll do it.

Actually something folky with big subs would be a natural progression... a direction I want to take some time...

there is an excellent chop up dance record by some anonymouses of radiohead by infamous upstarts, in a kind of smith and hack vibe that's really good.