Some of you might remember my enlightening conversion to the ways of Burial when I picked up the Traunt / Rough Sleeper 12" not so long ago; what an uplifting yet sorrowful journey that 12" was, and how it made me long for more Burial records! But, due to the overwhelming amount of shit that I'm into it's taken me quite a while to get around to buying another Burial record, but I finally picked up the self-titled double LP in Spillers earlier this week (24th November edit: "earlier this week" was fecking months ago haha).
The first thing I notice (other than the lush tunes) is how fast this thing goes for a double LP spinning at 33rpm per side...the needle literally slides across the wax like a graceful ice-skater...this shit lasts nowhere near long enough! Again I am already longing for more material from the excellent Burial. Ambient passages mash awkwardly, yet peacefully, with minimal synth work and jarring, broken beats, resulting in a soundscape that is reminiscent of both urban decay and human futility rolled into one bittersweet ball. Yet, at the same time you get that odd uplifting feeling of knowing joyfulness; that those two negative things have contributed to help mould something so beautiful.
Poetic description aside, this really is a great record. I have read it described on one Amazon review as the perfect soundtrack to taking the night-bus around London (and I'm pretty sure they weren't talking about Trafalgar Sqaure and all that shit). I think that sums it up nicely. I can't really pick a favourite song here because this thing flows so well and I tend to see the record as a whole rather than a collection of songs. Well worth a listen! Out on Hyperdub.
