Burial - Untrue / Deep Cuts Essentials #8 

This album changed my life. When I first listened to it I was depressed, unhappy with my life and what I was doing with it, and deep deep deep in the closet. In my freezing cold, damp 1 bedroom flat I remember looking out into the alleyway and seeing the rubbish, the wetness, and the streetlight grimly lighting it all. Never had music provided such a perfect soundtrack for me. It all came together. After all this time when I am travelling through a cold, dark UK city I put on Untrue and it puts me in that exact frame of mind. The sombreness and melancholy. It never leaves you. In Austin, Texas I was driving through the city with my friend and I put on Burial to show him how good it was, but I had to switch it off. The music just didn't match the atmosphere. Of course it's subjective, but I believe William Bevan created the ultimate and most astounding soundtrack to dank, urban UK life.

To call this album dubstep is simply... UNTRUE You missed a perfectly good joke right there

This is one of those albums I can't listen to during the day

Hey man The Seldom Seen Kid is a good record. Maybe didn’t deserve to win the Mercury Prize ahead of Untrue or In Rainbows, but it deserves respect. Even Radiohead were pleased they won it.

Loneliness and Depression: the Album

Mate, don't stop doing this, you're too good.

The album that really opened my eyes to the amazing world of electronic music...awesome video, very articulate and descriptive, you've put my feelings about this record into words. Subscribed!

GREAT GREAT VIDEO thanks !

Who’s elbow did he lose to?

If had a genie, i would ask him to erase my memory about this album so i can listen it with new ears Three times.

Hey , could anyone make recommendations of depressing music because all I can think of is like Radiohead and hurt by NIN

1:59 I take it that you're not a fan of Elbow.

anything triphop influences turns to gold, best genre ever

Absolutely one of my all-time favorite albums, right up there in my top ten. While I would at most consider myself a casual fan of electronic music, this one I fell in love with instantly and it gave me not only a new perspective and appreciation of the genre but also made me realize how one guy with a single tool could blow almost any other artist or band away in pure musical emotion. Out of all the albums I've enjoyed during the years this one has never fallen out of favor for me, and I love it just as much as when I first heard it. I don't need to say much more since you've already pretty much explained everything I love about Untrue. For anyone who considers electronic music cold, stale or lifeless, give this a listen. It will either be a life changing or life affirming experience or both. I guarantee it.

I just really love what you do. Your eloquence when discussing music is on a whole another level.

Burial and DJ Shadow were the best samplers of their respective decade, hands down

Woah. Liquid Swords and then Untrue. You're on fire my son! Two of my all time favourites.

This is like Talk Talk's "Laughing Stock" but for electronic music.

Deep Cuts could you make a 5 Albums to get into Plunderphonics? I feel that genre doesn’t get enough attention. Since I Left You should definitely be in there

would love to see a guide for Pink Floyd or Phil Elverum! Also bloompunch vol. 1 is awesome!

This record is an universe of its own

possibly one of the greatest electronic albums ever made. A sound of it's own yet you somehow feel like "i've been here before".

Untrue is the Millennial's Unknown Pleasures

I'd recommend Phaeleh - Fallen Light (his whole discography tbh) to anyone who enjoys this album, it's a bit more dub/dubstep orientated but there's some great garage in there too

I'm so happy you marked this album as an essential because it is one of my favourite albums of all time. You have successfully put into words some of the things I think and feel about it but couldn't really express. Untrue is dark and upbeat at moments yet sadly beautiful and atmospheric at others. My personal favourite track is probably the gloomy, melancholic and poetic "In McDonalds". Cheers!

Oh man, I just listened to 76:14 a week or so ago, what a beautiful, engulfing piece of ambient techno. Definitely motivated to listen to Untrue now (finally,) see you in the LP!

First time I heard Burial, I knew a lifelong love had been found

Also, i've noticed a little detail on the album back when it was released. I never heard reviewers notice that. The albums starts with "Archangel", and ends with "Raver". I'm not sure if it's of any importance though.

this album seriously changed my entire perspective on music.

This is the soundtrack to my sleepless nights back in 2008. Used to listen to it on night shifts looking out onto the fells, watching the sun rise in the summer. It gave me a feeling of hope when things felt tough.

Global communication is awesome!! Any ambient electronic fan should give 76:14 a listen.

you had me at Metal Gear

had the sudden urge to rinse this album this morning on the way to work, got home and saw this upload...

thank you for showing me mechanical museum!!! it is so good!!!

I don't really understand your dislike for Elbow, their music is the equivalent of a warm hug and in the midst of many colder sounding artists like Radiohead (who i also love) it's a breath of fresh air. Great vid anywho :)

1:55 I actually thought that Burial refused to appear on the Mercury Prize event, hence they replaced him with Elbow, wasn't that the case?

Nice Bloompunch shoutout

Aye Oliver, any chance of a guide to death grips video planned this year?

Truly masterful album, it should be archived somewhere as a monument to human kind, one of the closest albums to being well and truly perfect.

It's funny because Endorphin is my favourite song on the album and it could almost be interpreted as an interlude into etched headplate. This is one of the best sections of an album ever and one where I purely feel subjected to nothing but Burial's mind and his own landscape.

Burial untrue is not dubstep, burial's album called untrue has a deep ambient style of 2 step garage and jungle, and that time burial got famous about his artistic album, they created a new genre of electronic music that is called.... Future Garage Special thanks to Mary Anne Hobbs and hyperdub record for promoting and improving this genre during dubstep warz.....

What I find funny about this record is I doubt most of its fans would even like most of the music which its sampled from. Usher, aaliyah, christina agulara lol

Great review! The mood of this music this album is difficult to put into words, but you did exactly that

You are the man! Arguably my favourite record of all time and possibly the most influential electronic album of the last 10 years. Thanks for doing this!

burial fans, I've put together a collection of his unreleased tunes here, check them out: soundcloud.com/ravver/sets/unreleased-burial-tunes

Mechanical Museums so good

deep_cuts: the /mu/ core channel

The greatest figure in electronic music since Richard D. James.

Have been trying to get into this album for a while now. It just never clicked. Maybe now with a bit more context to it, I'll be able to appreciate it.

Untrue is not sad or depressing, it' s simply melancholy

If you listen to early dubstep and later dark garage, for example El-B, Horsepower Productions and Digital Mystikz, you'll hear where the comparison to dubstep comes from. Rolling drums backed up with rolling, low end subs. "UK Garage" didn't typically have these low end subs; at least, not until the brief period where dubstep was born from the late-coming dark end of the genre.

I remember driving i95 south thru Florida at 4am while in college listening to this one. Took a couple of listens to get it, but man did I come around.

i really think you should do a guide to john zorn ;)

It has the power to create images while listening, very powerful ones. It can be a therapy session for some of us.

So glad I found this album at the right time. I was at my lowest point in my life, still grieving my grandmother and aunt's deaths and thought I could not get out of the hole I dug myself into. Once I played Untrue for the first time coming back from the club on a rainy, sad night, I was able to ease myself into the instrumentation and feel of the album, and it felt cathartic, like there was beauty in the dark from the sounds and samples on the album. Easily one of my favourite albums of all time.

Theres a slight error here, not saying it is intentional but Soundforge is NOT an DAW but a simple audio editing program, and as such does not even OFFER the possibility of quantizing audio that it is fed

I can't believe this is nearly 3 years old.

I didn't like the album at all the first time I listened to it. I don't know what made me go back to it, but when I did I absolutely fell in love with it and since then it's been one of my favourite albums of all time. It's absolutely fantastic; incredibly textured and layered. Great review too! I'll be throwing this on repeat for the next couple of days.

What a descriptive review of one of my favorite, less known albums of all time. I totally agree with everything you said. Thanks you for helping to increase my musical vocabulary. You affirm my love for the scene.

Hey Oliver! I never comment on RU-vid videos, but i had to comment on this, because I listen to this record all the time. Thanks so much for introducing me to so much wonderful music I otherwise never would have found. You clearly put so much time and effort into these videos, and I really appreciate it. Thank you :)

Quem quer fundar uma gravadora aí??????

make a 5 albums to get you into Freak Folk!

Great analysis 👍

This is my all time favorite album, it's genuinely so amazingly good

Oh yes! I asked for this some months ago. Thank you! Great analysis on one of my top three albums.

One of my favourite albums of all time. reminded me of a great youtube wormhole I once got stuck in - listening to all of the samples burial uses: /watch?v=WxsSb-YjMYM

Thrilled that you count this amongst your essential albums, Olly! It’s hard to believe it’s been over a decade since this dropped. I remember fondly driving around Pittsburgh circa the fall and winter nights of fall/winter 2008, with this blasting from my newly purchased speakers and sub. As far as the sound, I had always thought of it as a post-dubstep album (though with this album, and especially all his work since, that label is a bit lacking) meets dark ambient, but a cinematic (reductive, as you say) masterpiece of electronic bass music is a catchall, kinda perfect description imo. I’ve been walking around town listening to his singles from last year in my earbuds, but this certainly has inspired me to go back to this album, and his earlier work (frankly, I think his first album is a masterpiece as well, though short of the haunting, organic (yes, organic) nature on Untrue). Great work, as always, mate! ✌🏼

Can you do a guide to Elbow?

Untrue was one my favorite albums of 2017. The atmosphere and rainy mood just took me into another place. I wholeheartedly love this album.

What are your thoughts on lil pump mixtape?

I'd recommend Phaeleh - Fallen Light (his whole discography tbh) to anyone who enjoys this album, it's a bit more dub/dubstep orientated but there's some great garage in there too

My very favorite electro album ever

The n o i r vibes throughout this entire album are just the best... It's always felt to me like some liminal in-between stage from 1920s jazz to.....Blade Runner? There's this aching honesty and pain....but it's all so dark and beautiful and sensual and pure. It's just music as art. So yeah, good album :D

Would you consider doing a Kate Bush guide?

I wanted to love this album so much, but i just couldn't. The smooth ambient background and the sound of rain is all i could appreciate, however the buzzing and some of the vocals gets so annoying after some repetitions and i had to skip the song.

He used SoundForge, not Source Forge! The latter is a website, the former, audio software.

Okay but what is wrong with Elbow though? I think that year would have been The Seldom Seen Kid too, which is fantastic. Either way Elbow is great.

5 albums to get you into emo!

After it resided on my wishlist for twelve years or so, I finally got it along with the 2019 compilation Tunes 2011 to 2019. Having that long of a span, it's easy to see in hindsight how this would be influential over the next decade. A lot of electronic music producers post-Untrue - Jamie xx, those who worked with The Weeknd in his first mixtapes, HKE - owe something to Burial. And on the other end of it all, I've learned there's nearly always a precedent to these things, either directly or indirectly. For instance, I can add this to the evergrowing "Blade Runner Expanded" list where it fits easily in Los Angeles 2019 alt or Los Angeles 2049 (or both). And it's funny you mentioned "Dog Shelter" as this was a stand-out cut for me after a first listen. I'm sure it's because of the Global Communication sample (and it is from "12.18", which is my favourite cut from that album ... so much so that I want that played at my wake). But at the same time, it does not fall into the trap where its influence would overpower its own character. Often with "influential albums", it can sound quaint as you hear other variations that could sound better than its predecessor. But with Untrue, it still sounds fresh and you could have your own relationship with it apart from its context in various electronic music scenes, before or after. It's akin to how The Dark Side of the Moon, no matter how astronomically ubiquitous it is, can still feel like it's an album made for you and just for you. Finally, I think melancholic is an appropriate tag for this. Melancholic can mean dark but more like overcast or just being in the dead of night. There can be some glimmer of hope in it too, even if it's very aware of its overcast. And finally, I've very often described melancholia as being enveloped by a warm blanket, which would allow you to sleep comfortably in a snowy forest. Take that for whatever it's worth.

Ok, so I passed out watching ur 20c Classical video ( yeh, sorry, but it still counts as a view bc the whole thing played. You're welcome! ). But this review shralped! Good to have u back from break and not reviewing classical which you can't make me listen to, idf what you say. So, looking forward to ur Dec/Jan roundup, love to hear your thoughts on JPEG, Eminem, Migos, Tune-Yards, etc. Also r u gonna do a stand alone BROCKHAMPTON piece? They are blowing UP here in the USA. Prob the biggest "underground" band we got since they own all their product and they haven't broke into the "mainstream" yet. Interesting and fun phenomenon..Last, cn u please rank the 5 albums King Gizzard put out in 2017?? Cmon man, all the other critics are doing it!! Lol

Did I meet you once at a festival in France?

I discovered Burial after watching your Halloween mix and I became instantly hooked. Truely amazing Music. I have been exploring some of Burial's EPs as well. Thanks alot for what you do!

If you like this kind of sound, listen to the album Origins by Vacant, came out recently and is obviously heavily inspired by Burial's work

This album contains an unpenetrative longing and sense of yearning (for what is up to the listener) within a genre I mostly associated with existentialism and "out-of-body" sensationalism. Burial's Untrue is an icy enough album to freeze someone into having to sit down and listen to it... which is what I find myself doing right now

i never understood this album... maybe its because im not british and i dont get what makes the music so sad.. but i just found it just.. ok

I love your videos and the way you review stuff, you always introduce me to new music i would never have listened to before! If I can make a request/suggestion I'd ask if you could do a guide to John Frusciante (you've mentioned being a huge fan of him) or maybe even Fugazi? Not sure if you are a fan of fugazi or not but the way they conducted themselves as a band as well as their awesome music could make for an interesting 'Guide To' video

I have little doubt that you do this as a labour of love, Oliver; however, you're clearly at a place where you're causing people to go out and buy slabs of vinyl everytime you drop a video. I can only hope this new initiative gives you some kickback.

Lavair is my hero 😍

I was introduced to this album by a friend 10 years ago. I am big fan of industrial and didn't really like UK garage, but this gem so touched me that even today (just listened to it again) feels relevant and just feels like what music should be. It should be felt, as opposed to liked/loved. I bet it will be relevant even 10 years from now.

I've got unconditional love towards this album. A unique masterpiece!

I'll be honest, I tried a few times to get into this album but it really didn't click with me. I can definitely appreciate the craftsmanship as well as the incredibly haunting, beautiful and nocturnal atmosphere, but I just don't get it. However I will listen to it a few more times. There's a load of albums which didn't really do anything for me at the first few listens, but are now some of my favourites. Maybe there's a certain time, place and mindset to enjoy this album? I feel like this would be great for a trainride late at night through a big city. Completely unrelated: Maybe do Deathconsciousness by Have A Nice Life for the next Essentials video? That would make me happy.

One of my favorite albums of all time. Extremely bummed when I bought the vinyl and realized the ambient tracks were omitted

This is a great video for a great album. Nice suprise to see that you've done an essential for it! I remember hearing Burial for the first time, and it was the key that really got me into the electronic/ambient, techno world.

One of my biggest influences. This album changed my life and pushed me to sample and stretch vocals in my music.

I have this on vinyl. LOVE burial.

I remember that I came to this album because of the "dubstep" label and I stayed for its beautiful darkness. Without doubts a classic.

you need to do a guide to Sufjan Stevens. Even as a fan of his work, I feel a bit overwhelmed sometimes

Please don’t rip off Resident Advisors vid next time

Listened to this album for the first time on Blue Monday last year and have loved it since, perfect nighttime soundtrack.

my dads mate gave him this album on some pirate CD and he gave it to me, and its legit awesome