Burial - Street Halo

New material involving Burial is always greeted with equal amounts of excitement and skepticism. Why have his releases been so limited since the outstanding Untrue, why is he focusing on collabs instead of solo stuff, why won't Kode 9 release the thousands of Burial tracks he must be sitting on.

Of course, this is what happens when musically someone is so talented, what you have simply isn't enough. Collaborating with Four Tet created two incredible tracks and lead him to collaborate with Thom Yorke, again creating 2 bleak and sonically beautiful cuts. Burial seems to have always worked at his own pace and the fact that Burial and Untrue were just 18 months apart says nothing about his projected work flow or what we should expect from him going forward. Kode 9 has been exceptionally transparent in regards to new Burial material... there is simply no idea. It comes when it comes and he's not holding ti back to fit release schedules, coincide with live performances or simply out of spite. Hyperdub let their artists breathe and create at their own pace.

Street Halo is the first solo release from Burial since the aforementioned Untrue and clocks in at just over 20 minutes, a sizeable amount for a 3 track EP. Each track is different sonically from it's depth in sound to it's use of instruments to create melodies.
The title track begins with a shuffly 4 to the floor bass beat that could easily have been an off cut from his work with Four Tet and as the track slowly builds to it's sudden pause, we are reminded of how Burial's use of reverb laden synth lines instantly transport you to a lonely 3am bus stop.
As  the track drops properly, we again have warped and chopped vocal lines that drift but it is the menacing bass line that seems more purposeful and dancefloor orientated than anything Burial has achieved before. It's funky nature powers through the other instruments, before mysteriously disappearing among a wash of reverse synths, vinyl crackle and various other percussive sounds. The track tends to stop and start, almost crescendoing without ever building or releasing. Burial teases each part, constantly creating new combinations of the various elements to see how they all fit together and it is those reverse synths that are used to really create the sense of tension and unease that litters his work.
One of the most notable elements of Street Halo, as with all other Burial work, is the vocal lines that dance in and out of the foreground of his mixes and it seems more obvious than ever in Street Halo when one vocal lines seems to blend seamlessly into a synth line almost mid-sentence, making you wonder if it were ever even a voice in the first place. That objectification of human elements is key in Burial's productions as he heightens a sense of disconnect and isolation. By questioning if the only human element was indeed ever human in the first place, you are left with a wall of sounds that become more alienating yet enticing.

Though Burial's work often incites feelings of awkwardness and discontent, this is by no means one of those tracks. Instead, the track surrounds you like sap covering a bug, finding yourself smothered in dancefloor beats and luscious production.

The WAV files are available from Hyperdub and the rest of the EP is just as brilliant with Stolen Dog being quite possibly the most sonically dense track Burial has ever created.