Burial "Untrue"

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I will take burial any day, middlebrow + all, over indifferent aphex wankery. except the early singles (didgeridoo etc) + saw I, those are great. but is there a more middlebrow record in the history of music than saw II?

i'd probably agree musically, though Aphex definitely tried a lot of different things, successful or not. again, i'm not criticising Burial much (well i am for the new EP sounding so similar to his past stuff, but that's it), just saying that what he does appeals to the mainstream(ish) press because they can weave half-baked theories around certain sonic signifiers he uses repeatedly, and he's unlikely to be completely ignorant of how that works.
 

e/y

Well-known member
fanboy disclaimer, but I don't think this new EP is particularly close to his previous work. not to say that it is a dramatic shift since he's still working with some familiar elements, but I think there's certainly an evolution of sorts going on - meddling with house (not a fan of this, not yet anyway), and the titular track having the most overt jungle influence of anything else he's done (probably why I love it so much).
 

paolo

Mechanical phantoms
I think Burial is ace and I don't care who knows it. Also his tracks do indeed work surprisingly well on the dancefloor
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
What does this term ''middlebrow'' mean exactly?

I keep seeing people using it on here. I want to know what it means so I can use it to deride things.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
''The term middlebrow describes both a certain type of easily accessible art, often literature, as well as the population that uses art to acquire culture and class that is usually unattainable. First used by the British satire magazine Punch in 1925, middlebrow is derived as the intermediary between highbrow and lowbrow, terms derived from phrenology.[1] Middlebrow has famously gained notoriety from derisive attacks by Dwight Macdonald, Virginia Woolf, and to a certain extent, Russell Lynes. It has been classified as a forced and ineffective attempt at cultural and intellectual achievement, as well as characterizing literature that emphasizes emotional and sentimental connections rather than literary quality and innovation.''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlebrow

So it means stuff that attempts to be high-brow but falls short? Pseudo-profundity?
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
They're a sentimental bunch.

the guy I train muay thai with always wants to listen to "across 110th street" + the commodores to make people move in rhythm (to "move like the brothers" as he puts it. he is a bit racist), the way they play thai music at fights in thailand. also I used to train jiu jitsu with this guy from the nation of islam who would sometimes put on off the wall-era MJ. or new jack swing.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I don't see what is wrong with sticking to one sound if you do it well. black sabbath only ever made one record really but it was a record of staggeringly awesome proportions.
 

Trillhouse

Well-known member
''The term middlebrow describes both a certain type of easily accessible art, often literature, as well as the population that uses art to acquire culture and class that is usually unattainable. First used by the British satire magazine Punch in 1925, middlebrow is derived as the intermediary between highbrow and lowbrow, terms derived from phrenology.[1] Middlebrow has famously gained notoriety from derisive attacks by Dwight Macdonald, Virginia Woolf, and to a certain extent, Russell Lynes. It has been classified as a forced and ineffective attempt at cultural and intellectual achievement, as well as characterizing literature that emphasizes emotional and sentimental connections rather than literary quality and innovation.''

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlebrow

So it means stuff that attempts to be high-brow but falls short? Pseudo-profundity?
I'm not sure that within this context it can mean that. Is there such a thing as highbrow dance music? I mean there is definitely a distinction between good and bad, but I don't think you could ever divide it on an intellectual basis.

IMHO, unfortunately, I think it's really just used to be snooty in response to, rather bombastic, contrary opinions.
 

SecondLine

Well-known member
so to me middlebrow is basically like the 'squeezed middle' (to borrow the Miliband term) of the dissensian aesthetic.

Obviously 'highbrow' can be considered as something which is 'art' as opposed to 'commerce' or 'mere pop' or whatever - but also has connotations of 'high art', so classical music, fine art etc. it's an elitist concept.

By the logic of a lot of dance music enthusiasts this binary is noxious and misguided but in their hands it essentially gets inverted - so 'true' or 'authentic' art is 'lowbrow': working class, born out of necessity rather than leisure, associated with the underdog. For me this almost always comes out in writing from hardcore 'nuumists. This is also the logic by which white middle class appropriations of black working class forms become ethically dubious (not saying it's wrong per se, this logic).

You still have an elitist aesthetic compass but it's oriented towards the opposite extreme. 'lowbrow' kind of becomes 'highbrow'...they're basically the same thing (particularly as 'high art' is really a cadaver being perpetually embalmed with arts funding these days anyway).

So the people who really lose out are the ones in the middle. That's what I'm trying to say.
 

luka

Well-known member
middle brow is just a rhetorical manuvere, an underhanded way of saying, you think youre cleverer than you really are. as such i quite like it.
 

luka

Well-known member
its things like saul bellow, julian barnes, arthouse cinema, the arts pages of broadsheet newspapers, radiohead, stuart lee, post-dubstep, sainsburys taste the difference range.... things that are probably worth laughing at i think.
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
i was just saying that chucking crackle onto everything and doing the same vaguely disembodied voices on most tracks seems like a very-quickly-wearing shortcut to creating a certain atmosphere, rather than doing the hard work of actually creating that atmosphere in a less hackneyed/more inventive way. He's using it as a crutch. But lots of reviewers seem to think it represents the, like, absolute undeniable sonic form of urban alienation. But then they also probably think, Saul Bellow is good.

All this seems pretty middlebrow all in all; a sonic equivalent of those films where people look 'meaningfully' at each other rather than the director going to the bother of including well-written dialogue or actual ideas or anything.

But Burial's better than that obviously. He's pretty good, just nowhere near as good as he's painted to be. imo. Could never listen to either of the albums all the way through. I think he should do a cockney knees-up version of the next one.
 
Last edited:

FairiesWearBoots

Well-known member
"OOOOoooowwwwwww . . . . . . . .. . .. . .. Knees up foster care, Knees up foster care . . . . .wiv a bit o' sample, an' a bit of crackle . . . . . . Knees up foster CARE!"

next up on ve ol' joanna, its that miserable cunt James Blake - oi James av a banana!"
 

Joey Joe-Joe Jr. Shabadoo

Well-known member
someone mentioned Aphex before and he's someone that makes tracks based on ideas, whereas burial only really seems to have 1 idea (that he does very well)

Portnoy's Complaint is a good book tho
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"its things like saul bellow, julian barnes, arthouse cinema, the arts pages of broadsheet newspapers, radiohead, stuart lee, post-dubstep, sainsburys taste the difference range.... things that are probably worth laughing at i think."
Good list.

"Portnoy's Complaint is a good book tho"
That's Philip Roth.
 
Top