Let's just start by saying this is probably one of the most important music releases in recent times. Ground-breaking albuns that are nothing less than genre defining don't happen often, with the best example probably still being 1995's "Timeless", by Goldie, responsible for taking jungle and drum'n'bass out of the underground and into the world in all its glory.
Cut forward to 2006 and we're introduced to dubstep, a new genre that has its origins in UK garage, slowing down its rhythm, cutting its voices and applying new sound techniques inspired by dub. And Burial, the mysterious London producer responsible for this urban masterpiece, will surely be remembered as its standard-bearer.
Of course, as with all visionary musicians, Burial doesn't limit itself to one genre, instead creating an intimate and personal view of how he sees what music should be: minimal, dark, post-apocalyptic, subterranean, mysterious, hypnotic and also moving... The result? A bit like walking alone into the spaces that were once occupied by raves and finding them totally empty and abandoned to degradation. Meaning that, after "City Watching" (2000) by Two Banks Of Four, and as its album cover brilliantly suggests, we have a new soundtrack for the urban city night, one that is much scarier but without a milligram of less beauty, just on the contrary. Not a single sound in here is unnecessary, not a single sample is out of place, not a single rhythmic texture is less than pure poetry, creating a suffocating ambience but full of melancholy, as if the haunted echoed voices that are sometimes heard in here were nothing less than an interpretation of our deepest feelings. We're not the first ones to say it, but we agree: Breathtaking.
