Burial "Untrue"

hucks

hucks

Your Message Here
baboon2004 said:
but that's kinda my point. the music form isn't for the broadsheets as such, but he's tailored it in such a way that people can write endless 'thinkpieces' about how he represents the zeitgeist or something. and i think he consciously plays up to that now he's realised it pays huge dividends. fair play, anyone would do it if it meant they got as much press attention as he has, but he sounds a bit samey and he's probably popular enough by now to do something that sounds a bit different and carry his audience with him.
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I don't think he does it deliberately at all. If the Quietus wants to write 5,000 words on him that's up to the Quietus.

FWIW I'm not too sure I'm into the new ep. There's one track, Loner, which is ace but the other two are too unfocussed. I am not of the view that 12 minute long tracks are a good idea. At that length, all the crackle (which I normally quite like, it's the language he uses) gets a bit much.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
hes like me. hes a fan. i dont understand why people cant just be fans. its good to be a good listener. im content to be one of the worlds great listeners. i dont think cos i can listen better than other peple that i can make better tunes than other people, i cant. know yourself. thats the golden rule.
 
J

Joey Joe-Joe Jr. Shabadoo

Well-known member
luka said:
hes like me. hes a fan. i dont understand why people cant just be fans. its good to be a good listener. im content to be one of the worlds great listeners. i dont think cos i can listen better than other peple that i can make better tunes than other people, i cant. know yourself. thats the golden rule.
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you coulda been a contender...
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
hucks said:
I don't think he does it deliberately at all. If the Quietus wants to write 5,000 words on him that's up to the Quietus.

FWIW I'm not too sure I'm into the new ep. There's one track, Loner, which is ace but the other two are too unfocussed. I am not of the view that 12 minute long tracks are a good idea. At that length, all the crackle (which I normally quite like, it's the language he uses) gets a bit much.
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hmm, i don't think he's that unaware of what he's doing and how it gets column inches. i liked that article but i feel like i've read it before a lfew times. nothing against him, it's natural to exploit that; but, the trick's run its course now.

Dunno, there are some amazing 12-minute tracks - Krautrocky stuff mostly, Fela too... To me it's just that it's the same old thing that is problematic. Well, not problematic, it's fine and he's already done some great stuff, but it's strange how any development of the sound (a new sound?) seems to be being resisted - he's in a beautiful position where he can do anything he fucking wants, within reason, and carry listeners with him. Most artists would kill for that.
 
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Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
luka said:
i like music i can listen to when im training for my next cage fighting tournament. burial doesnt really fill that niche.
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What about the warm-down after training, though, luka? What then? Flocka isn't going to cut it.

I think if you compare Burial's tunes to the garage tunes that inspired him they're bound to sound a bit flimsy and wishy washy. But they have their own virtues - strength of atmosphere and so on.

To be honest I never quite understood the absolute adulation for Burial. There are a number of tunes by him that I think are great, and I think there is something unique about his music that can't be replicated by others (despite their best attempts), but I do find a lot of his stuff a bit middling and soppy.
 
S

SecondLine

Well-known member
luka said:
hes like me. hes a fan. i dont understand why people cant just be fans. its good to be a good listener. im content to be one of the worlds great listeners. i dont think cos i can listen better than other peple that i can make better tunes than other people, i cant. know yourself. thats the golden rule.
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dude if Burial is just a fan with ideas above his station then the conclusion here is "every fan should make music because they will be incredibly successful and write music which somehow connects with many, many people".

Whether he 'gets' 2 step beats or not is irrelevant to whether the beats work. In my opinion they do. But failed imitation is pretty much the cornerstone of all innovation, I don't hear you saying all house is shit because they were going for disco but lacked the budget
 
e/y

e/y

Well-known member
I thought he said he couldn't get his drums to sound like / be as good as El-B's, not that he couldn't get them to sound good?

anyway, I <3 Burial
 
slackk

slackk

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The press reaction to Burial is just a continuation of the idea of the dance music (not that Burial is really making club music) producer as auteur isn't it.

You hide your face a bit, release a few murky twelves with a bit of static and crackle and then people treat you like you're the Fellini of "London" music.

No-one makes beats anymore, they're all geniuses aren't they.
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
it don't make sense to compare Burial to real 2-step. at the time he came out very little music in that scene (least as I remember) had any of that swing/shuffle in it so people latched onto him as a revivalist but he's always been pretty clear that he could never actually compete with El-B. it's all there in the Blackdown interview, not to recreate but to invoke some vestigial feeling of idealized raving golden age.

you can't blame a dude for the insipidness of future garage either the same way you can't blame Omni Trio for intelligent jungle or Loefah for brostep. it's not like genderless vocals, rain samples + crackly drums was an obvious formula for pop success.
 
S

SecondLine

Well-known member
slackk said:
The press reaction to Burial is just a continuation of the idea of the dance music (not that Burial is really making club music) producer as auteur isn't it.
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yeah fair, he does play into music journalists' urge to treat dance music like all the journalists they look up to used to treat rock. Not his fault though...I mean there's space for auteurs in dance music as well as a healthy scene. At least he doesn't claim his music works on the dancefloor
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
slackk said:
The press reaction to Burial is just a continuation of the idea of the dance music (not that Burial is really making club music) producer as auteur isn't it.

You hide your face a bit, release a few murky twelves with a bit of static and crackle and then people treat you like you're the Fellini of "London" music.
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But that's kind of the point, isn't it.

I mean, Burial's stuff is a very self-aware, auteurish music that's at one step distant from the classic garage and early dubstep that he's referencing, and you take it or leave it on those terms rather than just complaining that it's not Sunship or Dem 2...

I guess it's always been the way that the mainstream press tend to pick up on auteurs and turn them into stars because that's the structure that they're set up to deal with. On the other hand, I think the idea of no auteurs and faceless dance music is a bit of an oversimplification as well - I mean, we can all reel off the names of classic hardcore / jungle / UKG auteurs and a lot of them seem to have had at least some pretensions to 'seriousness' what they did...
 
padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
tell me how burial auterism is different from omni trio or photek or steve gurley. or mike banks. even in press coverage, go back + read reynolds' mid-90s jungle scene reports or any turn of the millenium kodwo eshun UKG article and tell me how they're not writing about certain producers as auters.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
i think, rather than auteurism per se (although his ability to be 'read' that way def helps), it's the way journalists can wax lyrical about it being about 'more than music' and an expression of the 'ghost of jungle' or other such things, that means Burial will always (well, often) be a broadsheet favourite.

does/did burial's music ever get played at fwd or wherever? can't imagine it, but maybe. he seems much more in an Aphex Twin 'good IDM' lineage to me, though not as diverse as Aphex obv.
 
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padraig (u.s.)

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
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?
 
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