Another thing that slipped unrecognised under my nose in 2016 was the new Burial EP. It appears that the urbanism-as-sound mastermind continues to favour the EP format over releasing another full length for us, although there is something beautiful about one of these EPs dropping every so often, offering us a glimpse into the modern, concrete existence of Burial's world through a drizzly, fractured lens.
It may sound a bit frightful if I tell you that I find this 12" to be more of the same, but I promise you that this is just as excellent as anything the elusive producer has ever dropped. This is London put to wax. 10/10.
Computers And Blues was, sadly, the final record by The Streets. For me, Streets records tend to follow a fairly defined pattern of progression. After the almost ethereal chill out of Everything Is Borrowed, Computers And Blues seems like a bit of a step backwards (only in the order of how things unfolded, not in quality). This final release feels to me like it should have come out between A Grand... and The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living.
It is the only Streets record not to be pressed on vinyl. It is also the only Streets album that doesn't jump out at me with some sort of over-arching theme. In that way alone, it is entirely unique in the group's discography, and perhaps this was something that Mike Skinner wanted to have a go at before putting the group to bed? Who knows, I'm just rambling here. Anyways, there are some fantastic songs here. The first four are absolutely solid. The opener, "Outside Inside" is amazing, and the following track, "Going Through Hell", should have been the lead single, in my opinion. Further along the tracklisting, "Blip On A Screen" is Mike rapping for his unborn son, which is actually kinda nice. "OMG" is a bit weak, being essentially about Facebook, but is an interesting concept and has a happy ending (although not the Thai massage kind).
I think it would have been much more mysterious and even mature to end The Streets legacy with the introspective Everything Is Borrowed, but that doesn't change the fact that this is a mega-solid British record, which falls lazily somewhere between indie and hip hop.
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.
