It would be easy for me to simply describe Burial’s music as “spooky techno.” Probably electronic music scholars have a sub-genre classification Burial’s music falls under that basically means about the same thing, at least to us unenlightened souls. Like most other ignorant Americans of my generation, I pretty much lump large subgenres of electronic music together and just call them all techno, or if I’m trying to sound faux-hip, electronica.
But Burial (a.k.a. William Bevan) makes music that feels far more substantial than any precious genre label or tossed-off description would suggest. The beats pulse and throb, surge and stutter, click and hiccup; his use of sampled, spliced, and distorted voices to amplify his mood is flat-out masterful; eerie synths haunt the proceedings; and sampled sound snippets drift in and out of the mix like ghosts.
Burial’s music is not my typical style, in fact, but once I start, I listen to it compulsively. I love it.
And yes, it’s spooky.
Here are two playlists of Burial to haunt your waking dreams.
Playlist 1
Playlist One highlights Burial’s two proper full-length album releases, Burial (2006) and Untrue (2007). Great stuff here.
Playlist 2
Since those albums, Burial has focused on releasing singles and EPs. Playlist Two highlights some more recent material, including some collaborations. The feel here is more trance-inducing, with longer songs that shimmer and shift over time, working on your subconscious in more ambient ways.
Note: Well, Spotify has done it again. My planned playlist spanned the years 2009-2013, and included collaborations with Four Tet, Thom Yorke, and Massive Attack. But I can’t find any of these collaborative tracks anywhere on Spotify. “Mirror” and “Ego,” with Fout Tet and Thom Yorke, were particular favorites.
So I’ve shifted gears, expanding the scope to make up for the missing tracks. The playlist starts with an early single that predates his two albums, then moves closer to present-day, all the way through 2017. Then I ran out of space. I’ve selected one song per release.
Cover Art:
- Burial and Untrue: Source, Discogs.com, Fair use.
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