How has burial dated for you?

william_kent

william_kent

Well-known member
so I once read this:

Burial named El-B as a key early influence in a 2006 interview with Blackdown. "I became obsessed with El-B and garage. Those drums. I’d been into jungle but then heard that stuff and loved it," Burial recalls. "I discovered El-B and garage at the same time. I heard his Brandy remix, then 'Buck n Bury' and 'Passage of Time' - and I hadn’t even heard 'Stone Cold' yet, though I’d heard of Groove Chronicles on something else I didn’t like. Then I heard 'Stone Cold' and I was just like 'fuck…'"


Burial goes on to reveal that it was his inability to emulate El-B's drums that initially led him to layer vinyl crackle into his tracks, which later became a central aspect of his sound. "I don’t know what he does," he tells Blackdown. "He’s got kit I don’t have so I started covering everything in crackle, to hide it, bury it, so I could do those drums I love. I didn’t have the equipment to make it sound like Photek-fucking-sculpted, proper heavy, El-B heavy. So I had no choice but to put the crackle on it and get away with it."

"Some of those tunes are sad because they sounded like the future back then and no-one noticed," he continues. "They still sound future to me. El-B’s stuff is still ahead of the game."
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and then I saw this:


El-B Masterclass 2007

El-B talks about "yeah, it's a dub feel and that, so let me break this down for yer, very simple what we did, you've got a, err, rebirth of an old garage, sorry, rebirth of an old drum and bass sample CD, err, Jungle Warfare, probably spark a lot of memories off..."

[ ... El-B nods head, sucks on spliff... ]

"now what we've done is, we've filled it out with, what we call, the flickers, keeps it riding, kick snare kick snare with the fills in between"

"bam bam de bam"

so El-B admits to not building his drum tracks?

so Burial's "inability to emulate El-B's drums" was all down to not owning the Jungle Warfare sample pack CD?


Jungle Warfare sample CD


* don't get me wrong, I love El-B productions, who cares if he didn't build his own beats, etc, sampledelic innit
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
william_kent said:
so Burial's "inability to emulate El-B's drums" was all down to not owning the Jungle Warfare sample pack CD?
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I kind of love this sort of thing though, like the story in 'Rip it up and start again' of how new order tried to replicate new order without hearing them.

Pre omniscient internet days when all sorts of interesting misconceptions could happen.

Compare today when you can find out exactly how aphex twin made 'xtal' or whatever in 5 minutes and replicate it yourself on your soft synth of choice
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I'm sure people have to talked about this in this very thread, how Burial's reluctance/refusal to be identified and capitalize on his fame places him in such stark contrast to the social media era.

I'm not really a fan of anything he's done since 'Untrue' (I'm sure there are bits and pieces I like) but I do like the sense of mystery that adheres to his stuff. Unfortunately I think he's now replicating his old tricks (the crackle, the footsteps etc.) and it sounds less mysterious than self-parodic and hacky.
 
T

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Corpsey said:
I'm sure people have to talked about this in this very thread, how Burial's reluctance/refusal to be identified and capitalize on his fame places him in such stark contrast to the social media era.

I'm not really a fan of anything he's done since 'Untrue' (I'm sure there are bits and pieces I like) but I do like the sense of mystery that adheres to his stuff. Unfortunately I think he's now replicating his old tricks (the crackle, the footsteps etc.) and it sounds less mysterious than self-parodic and hacky.
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those footsteps and crackles were the worst bit. the stink of aesthetic neoconservatism. i honestly respect people like Noisia and that lot much more. Yes, it's overly fussy hormonal neuro dnb, but at least it makes no pretensions to being otherwise. Which is where the @blissblogger thesis of if something is being dismissed, it is worth paying attention to, collapses in the mid 00s. Because 00s dnb isn't worth investigating, unless like me you're into skeletal beats n bass.

In this sense Burial is worse because he isn't just conservative, but he tries to reclaim (rather than revive) a bygone era, hence his neo-conservatism. Revivals always hint at foreclosed possibilities, whereas reclamations A) always look for a leftist schmidtian antagonist (even in politically worthy and righteous pursuits like the reclamation of techno from white tranceheads) and B) are a halfway house between melancholia and ressentiment. Why could have things not remained like this, why do I support a microcapitalist structure which somehow can't be independent of the market forces I also fetishise? In this sense, reclamations are always swan songs to the death of something, whereas revivals hint at its vitality, even if the vitality in question is basically a cul de sac.

It's not quite conservative in the sense that your modern garage or jungle productions are, it's insufficiently conservative in that sense, actually.

More postmodern than the literary formalism of kitchen sink realism.
 
shiels

shiels

_
His influence on dance music and pop can’t be overstated, right up to the weeknd and Fred again. But it’s a bad influence. A kind of hazy insipid melancholy. In his own tunes he offsets that with harshness and odd arrangements and surprise but when it’s distilled to the burial formula it’s sickly
 
R

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
burial was not an official 'sadboy' artist but def one of the key names who made sad/melancholy music (like the xx, sampha, all those other post dubstep producers - now thinking of that ikonika quote about tracks that are like crying on the dancefloor, etc) popular/influential in the last 10-15 years. not heard the second album since it came out but it seemed like even on there he was already starting to sound self conciously burial-like (could have been wrong though, not heard it in years). the first album and those Eps were brilliant though. there was still that certain attitude so he wasnt miring in melancholy like a lot of the stuff that came around after him.
 
other_life

other_life

bioconfused
i think i've had a tendency to overstate how much i like the new ep's since rival dealer as they've come out even if they get away from what i like best about untrue and rival dealer, as stated upthread though 'burial doing straight ambient no drums' is a dodgy proposition
 
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