Hmm... but I think that in doing so he has opened up a firmer dialogue with "pop"-- and whilst approaching a more conventional song-form the ambiguity of his manipulated vocal lines (full of not just pitch-shifted denaturalisation but also the ability thru cutting and pasting of syllables to transform the linguistic meaning of the original sample- "untrue" yes?) becomes ever more foregrounded: by moving closer to a "normal" structure the oddness becomes even more stark... the ghostliness comes in that he makes dead recorded sound speak for his own emotional agenda, he re-animates it, stitching together fragments into something which approximates a garage pop song, whilst like a Frankenstein's monster the stitches in the skin are all too visible. The emotional response that it generates in the listener then is complicated by the ever-present awareness of the unnatural form of construction, which immediately problematises the straightforwardly ego-psychological interpretation of the song. To whose ego are we referring? The singer of the song? Burial himself as engineer? Or some abstract third party character depicted in the song... equally the blurring of gender distinctions is even more subtle- Burial deliberately obscuring identifiable gender signifiers in the lyrics and vocal tones being used... every time you think you find the meaning it slips immediately from your grasp ("I can't take my eyes of you my..." Boy? Does the voice sing that or what exactly? Then later "I envied you..." Girl?) ... All you are left with is desire and recrimination circling each other... the delirium of love is contained in the very fabric of the recording... As such this record stands much closer to the theoretical presentation of the hauntological agenda in sound, rather than the more atmospheric debut.
In a sense rather than the ghosts of pirate radio, it is now more snatches of half understood mobile telephone conversations between technologically distanced lovers overheard on public transport... where you can't quite tell if they're laughing or crying...