Burial
Burial (real name: William Bevan) is a Dubstep musician from London. Known for his two highly acclaimed albums (Burial and Untrue) and being generally secretive. Bevan claims to make nearly all of his music in the audio editor Soundforge, disavowing traditional trackers and sequencers that eventually brought Drum N Bass to a creative standstill.
His tracks are often described as being like the soundtrack to a Cyberpunk Film Noir, which is an apt description.
Burial has collaborated with several other dubstep and drum & bass artists, and plans have been announced to have him remix Massive Attack's Heliogoland, though when this will occur is anyone's guess. The release of a limited-edition 12" featuring two, roughly 10 minute long remixes of 1 released and 1 unreleased Massive Attack songs have led many to wonder whether it is the end product of the album collaboration rumours.
Albums
- Burial: 2006: Hyperdub Records
- Untrue: 2007: Hyperdub Records
Singles/EPs
- South London Boroughs: 2005: Hyperdub
- Distant Lights: 2006: Hyperdub
- Ghost Hardware: 2007: Hyperdub
- Moth/Wolf Cub (with Four Tet): 2009: Text [sold in black LP sleeves with no artist information]
- Ego/Mirror (with Four Tet and Thom Yorke): 2011: Hyperdub
- Street Halo: 2011: Hyperdub
- Four Walls / Paradise Circus (remixing Massive Attack): 2011: Inhale Gold
- Kindred: 2012: Hyperdub
- Cursed with Awesome - The reason he uses Soundforge is, according to the man himself, that he simply can't make good music on a traditional DAW.
- Epic Rocking - Kindred clocks in at 12 minutes.
- Mistaken Identity - Before he revealed his identity, British tabloids speculated that he might be Richard D. James or Norman Cook.
- One-Woman Wail - More like one....androgynous, cyber-vocal wail.
- Reclusive Artist
- Sampling - Done frequently with vocals, which are usually unrecognizeable by the time Burial is done with them, as they are usually pitch-shifted into androgynous, shifting wails.
- Secret Identity - A rare musical example. It didn't last long though - in 2008 he was revealed to be William Bevan.
- Bevan said he kept his anonymity to focus the attention on his music instead of him, and decided to drop it when he felt it became too much of an issue.
- Self-Deprecation: Used frequently in interviews, as seen in the page quote.