Burial - Temple Sleeper

[alan nagsworth]

Hey look he's got a new song out!

Preview it here.

Buy it here.

Not surprisingly, it's fucking great. More in the vein of his recent work which has various movements contained in one song, only this is a lot more to the point, which is especially clear with the song's predominantly dancefloor-friendly 4x4 garage beat.

This'll take a good few listens to pick out all the beauty that is just waiting to be discovered, but straight away, I like it a lot.

Let's talk about how great Burial is.

[alan nagsworth]

Ugh, this guy really is a musical genius. He has seemingly created this niche of electronic music whereby sometimes it is all I ever want to listen to, forever. A bit like Aphex in that respect, and similarly it touches a rare nerve in my brain that is unlike any reaction I've ever had to any other music. With every release he becomes a stronger artist, every new direction is bold and exhilerating.

I posted this elsewhere here, but the other week I was listening to "Rival Dealer" on the train home and I had a serious thing. I was suddenly completely at peace with everything, it was bliss. Everyone else on the train looked so beautiful and significant, and I was so happy I felt like I could cry, which is strange because ordinarily I am a walking ball of animosity and I want nothing to do with anyone. That record is really open and honest, though, and I think that its (possibly deliberate) release being so close to Christmas, when winter is really taking it out of me the most and I feel like an emotional trainwreck, also plays a huge part in why I feel so close to it. It makes everything alright. Funnily enough my friend is also a confessed crier of tears on the train listening to Burial.

Just listening to "Truant/Rough Sleeper" now, fucking hell. When those bells come in around the halfway mark of "Rough Sleeper", that's it. Stick a fork in me I'm floating up to heaven.

[monkfromhavana]

Sad to say, I'm not really feeling it. The end goes a bit old skool ravey which is good, but I prefer my Burial to be far more melancholic. I prefer the ravey bit to most updates of the 1991-93 sound that I've heard though.

Like the Kate Bush sample at 2.35.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyanOxQdZu8

[Squink]

Yeah, the whole Rival Dealer EP is fucking amazing. New one sounds ok, just need a bit of time with it I think, although I suspect it's going to be one of the lesser works in his canon.

[momatt]

C'mon A-Nags, do you like Burial or not?  Stop being so evasive.

[doppelkorn]

Burial's music really lends itself to being listened to on the train. Why is that?

[doppelkorn]

Urgh. First thoughts on that track is that that main chord progression is cheesy as hell and really puts me off.

Is that a snippet of the full track?

[monkfromhavana]

Is that a snippet of the full track?

I couldn't work it out either, even on the 6 minute Youtube vid. If it is, it's far away from his best. You get the feeling that it's 4 separate tracks, completely unlinked. Other he stuff he does changes, but at least it has a kinda flow to it.

[The Boston Crab]

Probably the first burial release I don't think is great. Having seen the mortal kombat movie a couple of times, I'm uncomfortably familiar with that synth arpeggio and chord progression. Just sounds naff. Not the first time he's done such a straight ahead track. It's like a more crap version of Raver, which is already one of the most dull things he's done.

He should have played less Dark Souls 2 this past year and spent a bit more time on this. It's not necessarily the ravey cheese, it's more the simplicity and lack of burial touch which I'm unimpressed by.

[alan nagsworth]

you guys are stupid

[RenegadeScrew]

Wasn't very impressed myself, but then I wasn't very impressed with the last EP either.

Rather than continuing with my trite pish though, let me paste the wonders of someone else on Youtube.

Luis Sierra
18 hours ago

Now it's his turn to redefine olskool hardcore like he did in Rival Dealer first track. Let the master speak. I think this tune is an old one and now he's trying to re-redefine the meaning of "cheesy" that he made with his masterpiece Rival Dealer. 

[Hangthebuggers]

Damn, the opening made me tingle. A nice change of tone and pace. Love me a bit of Burial I do. Best listened to on the back of a bus, driving through a rainy city in the evening.

[Funcrusher]

Haven't been that wild about anything he's done since 'Untrue' . He seems to be chucking ideas at the wall in the hope that something as interesting as his earlier stuff will emerge.

[The Boston Crab]

I really like that patchwork approach. It's something Animal Collective used to do much more, it's one of my favourite things in music. I love the idea of a fifteen minute piece which goes through a few separate but linked ideas and moods.

After my early morning grouchiness, I listened to this on the way home tonight after a knackering game of squash and I got psyched. I think the cheesiness has always been there in his music, especially as I've never been into rave, but with time those elements become euphoric and melancholic, not cheesy. I think the first section is probably the weakest but I'm looking forward to it listening again.

[alan nagsworth]

^ Absolutely, man.

I also really enjoy the little refrains between the different parts of the song, where the beat suddenly drops out and you're left with this cavernous space around you. It's funny how the earlier Burial stuff that had a lot of urban/streetwise song titles like "South London Boroughs", "In McDonalds" and "Raver" sounded, as I also mentioned in the dubstep thread, like being out on a cold street at night. It felt alienated and dark and sometimes even lost.

On "Truant/Rough Sleeper" there's still that same atmosphere as before, only now Burial sounds more aware of his surroundings. When he introduced the refrains between segments on these tracks, those songs felt like walking the streets with your head down, completely lost and empty, until those brief moments in between where you lift your head up and look at the sky and the buildings and signs around you. It allows the song to gain focus and move forward.

"Rival Dealer" was like an enormous release, feeling like you've reached an emotional breaking point and you need to escape, and finally and completely coming to terms with everything at the end. It's like fucking musical therapy or something.

Now, with "Temple Sleeper" the music has found release and is running with it, and those refrains bring even bigger spaces with them. Pelting full force through alleyways and then suddenly landing in someone's garden, taking stock of the area, and then hopping the fences for a while until you come out to an enormous fucking field. Breathtaking.

It's also worth noting with this song that I've found the insistence of the beat and lead synth only serve to the real quality MEAT of the tune, which is blowing and crackling and rattling in the background throughout it. Those vocals too, man, every time. How does he do it?

[ndrwkrtn]

The "come on!" sample makes it

[Funcrusher]

Is that a Kate Bush sample at 2:35?

[The Boston Crab]

Like the Kate Bush sample at 2.35.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyanOxQdZu8

Yup. I like that bit, like the shift in tone, puts the original sample in a different context when it comes back in.