Burial Untrue CD

If most musical projects aim for at least a measure of popular notoriety, the clandestine U.K. producer known as Burial seems to thrive on self-imposed anonymity. In interviews, the London-based dubstep artist explains his willful obscurity as an effort to draw a formal boundary between underground and pop--to effectively become "untrackable, unreadable, just a distant light." Whether this is pure hype-sheet driven strategy or a bona fide lob at the music business's cult of personality makes little difference; the immersive, emotive music found on his second album, UNTRUE, evinces a true perfectionist's touch. Drawing upon the euphoric "feminine pressure" vocals of 2-step garage and the malevolent bass rumble of darkside drum & bass, UNTRUE both elaborates upon and conflates genre clichés with a mix of irreverent deconstruction and reverential homage.

As in his eponymous debut, UNTRUE is daubed in a grainy, lo-fi ambience that casts a sinister fog over the rhythmic foreground. Ominous creaks, pops, and drizzles lurch furtively from some void, creating crackly accents or yawning, metallic squeaks. On "Ghost Hardware" the staccato syncopations of garage are either distended into growling bass undertow, or crumpled into shards of asymmetrical flourish. Against the metronomic clack of a woodblock-like rimshot, female voices coo seductively like spectral sirens. While much of the vocals are undoubtedly sourced from R&B samples, they are manipulated to the point that they become another layer of sound. "Archangel" could be mistaken for a conventional 2-step track if not for the strange, cyborgized vocal samples. Flitting between female and male often within the same bar, the digital pitch variations create a post-human sense of longing--a voice trailing off in resignation. The album closes with the elegiac "Raver." A nod to the U.K. rave subculture, its classic house thump frames a stately string part--perfectly capturing the youthful optimism and utopian ideals of a bygone music revolution.

2007 sophomore release from the UK's mysterious and much-acclaimed Burial. Of all the artists past and present who claim to let their music do their talking for them, Untrue, is a record of weird Soul music, which lovingly processes spectral female voices into vaporized R&B and smudged two-step garage. Vocal lines are blurred, smeared, pitched up pitched down and pitch bent until their content is cast adrift from their original context and they whisper their saccharin sweet nothings into the void. Forget central heating -- the radioactivity of this album is all that you'll need to keep you warm this winter.Spin (p.92) - 4.5 stars out of 5 -- "UNTRUE deepens and expands his emotional range....All rain-slicked bass flicker, disembodied voices, and electronic drift..."
Uncut (p.87) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[T]exture, really, is the key here....UNTRUE forgoes meaty basslines and huge drops for a more holistic, complete approach to sound."
The Wire (p.36) - Ranked #2 in The Wire's "Top Ten Records of the Year 2007" -- "On UNTRUE, Burial emerged even more ghostly than before....Underneath the gloom was a renewed sense of warmth and intimacy."
The Wire (p.53) - "[With a] devastatingly effective sound palette, in which, over a constant industry of dubstep rhythms, clouds of synth billow with grainy, overwhelming toxicity, from the drains, the tenements, the skies."
Q (Magazine) (p.108) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "UNTRUE lives in the present, its more complex moods showcasing the emotional range that marks Burial out as more than just another bloke with a computer."