The first time I ever heard a track by Burial was 2years ago I think... When I studied Electronic Music Production at SAE in Byron Bay. My teacher told us to bring in our favourite track to play to the class and we'd dissect it. When I heard that it was going to be played through a 40g (give or take a few thousand) sound system I just had to play some Nero (LOVE ME SOME FAT BASS). Anyway after we got through my track and learnt how recording in Stereo can highly impact a song when you play it it in mono (some frequencies cancel each other out) my teacher chucked on the track Archangel by Burial. I was currently going through a dubstep phase and was immediately EXCITED!
To impress me even more I learnt that virtually all the sounds you hear on this London artist's tracks are all samples of noises (not instruments) but people walking, rain falling, busses, rocks, practically anything you hear is an every day sound manipulated in such away that it sounds like a beautiful instrument. Burial use a fairly basic and simple DAW (digital audio workstation) and his signature sound is the crackly background noise you can hear in his tracks to cover up glitches you get when manipulating noises.
It still astonishes me how a 2-step garage/dubstep producer can turn a cheese, corney RNB song by Ray J (One Wish) into the melencholic Archangel still astonishes me! I love the way he manipulates the voice into a falsetto and bass tone. Giving it that 'archangel' affect of being sung by neither male nor female. Definitely an atherial sounding song and I LOVE IT!
Check out the comparison bellow
Burial: Archangel
Ray J: One Wish
And to make things even more interesting here is a cover by Chet Faker of Archangel... so I guess it's Chet Faker doing a cover of Burial doing a cover of Ray J. Who does it better?
xx Laura
