In the case of the Kieran Hebden/Steve Reid duets, because one is electronics and one is drums, there is no confusion about what they are trying to do. Sometimes they successfully mesh and sometimes it just doesn’t work, but it almost always sounds original (and different from each has done individually).

Lauren is right in saying the Burial brings some warmth to Four Tet. And in the parts of Moth with the strong rhythmic line, (presumably) Hebden provides the harder-edged, more mechanical but still interesting sound. But it never achieves anything close to what each artist has done on his own. So I also agree with Alan there is little or no synergy here.

On the commerde side, I have no idea what kind of sales volume each artist has but even with this reasonably clever marketing approach, it doesn’t seem like this pairing will be much of a breakout for either, although I suppose every bit counts.

Still, Radiohead’s In Rainbows eventually made it to the retail CD format with considerable success so maybe there is reason to have a CD of some sort to follow here as well. Having now heard it, I might not buy exactly this material but a remix to further blend the input might be fun and/or interesting.

Others have written about the pitch-shifting as as a way of confounding the way that we hear gender and I affirm a way of listening that does not close the presence of the voice within the gendered matrix of the always-already female ‘diva’ as much as it might open up the question of how exactly it is that we ‘hear’ gender in music. Maybe it’s just me but it’s in the ambiguity (admittedly not *as* present in these tracks as in other places in Burial’s work) that the sex-appeal resides, that the machine desires.

anyway, i love the mp3 discussion format and really hope to see more of these take off in the future. it has the potential to be a great series.

and of course, a lingering question: the initial snafu with track titling, labeling, encoding and authoring raised nascent questions about metadata and the authorial imperative in digitally circulated sound. not articulatable yet, but perhaps there will be some fortunate reason to dig in next time round.

And re contemporary listening habits and music packaging, I posted my responses to a set of questions from a student researching the subject on my blog which may be of interest.

Re: your reference to Bush of Ghosts – Hassell was due to be the third element in that release and remains to this day annoyed that Eno and Byrne recorded it without him.

Regarding the 12″ in question, undoubtedly the level of discussion on the web is a result of Burial’s reclusive, but widely admired approach to music. Despite being initially alienated by the hype, I now think he deserves much of the attention. This collaboration is an interesting, unexpected and welcome development. In itself I think it’s fairly slight, but it may be significantly enriched by further work by the pair. I hope that’s the case!

Burial’s beats have usually been clunky constructions, wrought by intermediate technology. His programme of choice is Soundforge, a fairly unsophisticated bit of ware; it’s no Max/MSP or Ableton Live. Deliberately DIY, you might say. Most of his rhythms are derived from 2-step’s jerky synco-swing template, but rendered slightly ‘off’. He’s not actually ‘proper’ dubstep, but post-dubstep, i.e. knowingly appropriating elements from the dubstep template and grafting other elements onto it. But, of course, dub-step is a hybrid anyway, and different acts accentuate one or another genre element from the palette, or by adding another ‘new’ colour. In the case of many of the Bristol artists (e.g. Peverelist, Pinch, Headhunter), that colouring has typically been a post-Berlin/Basic Channel techno derivation. Likewise with 2562 and Martyn in the Netherlands (sidenote: I tend to be drawn more to this orientation).

Anyway, with Burial, his beat is not techno-tronic. With Rhythm, his preferred flayvah is UK garage and house choons, and, with Sound, there’s been an appealing ‘ambient’ influence; the ambient sound of rain has apparently been a big thing for Burial, and there’s a heavy use of [g]rainy textures in his productions. With (the track here ID-ed as) “Wolf Cub” (but almost certainly really “Moth”), the beat is comparatively pedestrian, so my ears quest for gratification upstairs. Topping? Hmmm, the textural element seem not that interesting to these ears, especially as track time goes by beyond 4 minutes. With (the track here ID-ed as) “Moth” (but almost certainly really “Wolf Cub”), the textures present in-your-face, but when the beats arrive, they’re pretty much a version of the kind of wonky (not Wonky) stuff he’s done before, but kind of oddly displaced; like, in the rhythm and sound equation, they’re less about rhythm than sound. But I’m still not satisfied by either. I dunno, I’m still working out why neither track works for me as well as some of the better pieces they’ve done solo. And it seems to be that somewhere between beat base and ambient topping, the synergy isn’t there.

In many ways, the set’s appearance as a black-label, plain-package, limited-edition release is ordinary within the confines of the zone in which it’s appearing. In all manner of club (and more broadly electronic) music (i.e., hip-hop, techno, house, disco, and so on), the 12″ vinyl record has provided a primary distribution mode. A spare black or white label 12” generally means the thing can get shipped out the door as quickly as possible. That way it can start making its way through the music/culture ecosystem, getting play in DJ sets, leading to some sense of feedback on the part of musician and label.

This is less the norm now than it had been. Time was, DJ pools and record companies and small record stores together enabled the 12″ to serve as a test balloon — float it out there, see if it catches wind.

Nowadays, MP3s and grey-market Internet distribution, as well as digital retail, handle much of how music makes its way to listeners. “Scarcity” is a fairly meaningless concept. There is some music that remains relatively difficult to find, especially bootlegs of non-commercial releases (for example, I keep reading about recordings of recent live Bill Laswell sessions with DJ Krush but haven’t heard any of it), yet the days when if you couldn’t locate, say, a copy of Aphex Twin “Hangable Auto Bulb” EP you probably didn’t hear it for awhile, if ever, are over.

Heck, some of the commentary I’ve seen on “Moth”/”Wolf Cub” has mentioned that the Burial material resembles prior, unreleased work (which is to say, unreleased commercially, yet readily accessible). The market has fewer tools than ever to regular what’s heard, let alone what’s released. (Lest that come off as a complaint, please understand I mean it’s an improvement, not a decline.)

I would be highly surprised if Burial and Four Tet’s “Moth”/”Wolf Cub” isn’t followed by additional, related releases, which are then collected on a proper album. I think back to how those long ago Tortoise remixes appeared in lovely individual yellow-label 12”s many years ago, just like the 12″s that came to form Kosma’s New Aspects in Third Stream, just to name two examples.

As a sales promotion, the Burial/Four Tet set has clearly been successful. However, that mode isn’t scalable. If every semi-major electronic act started doing what I’d term “scarcity promotion,” the overall scarcity of the experience would be severely diminished. (It’s sort of like the Nine Inch Nails app for iTunes. It’s a great innovation, but in time, when there are 100s of these apps for every major and minor band, the idea of a dedicated app will seem less feasible, less manageable, less warranted.)

So on the one hand, the 12″ is an expected mode for the Burial/Four Tet release, yet on the other, such a 12″ is somewhat out of its time, especially given the popularity of both of these artists.

Lauren and Alan’s comments about nostalgia come to mind here. The 12″ itself carries an aura not unlike that of the diva figurations we’ve been discussing: a taste of times past.

This exercise is an unusual way for me to “warm up to music.” In many ways I am a typical music consumer; I listen to a lot of music in the background. It’s disciplined for me to sit and listen to music as a foreground exercise, with all of the distractions and comforts of home. But yet, this deeper listen is what led me to hear something warmer and purposeful in Wolf Club. For this, I’m grateful.

As for the ghostly ambient twinges, they are very backgrounded in the mix. They sound like air bubbling up from some abyss, some deep black sea murk of sounds, such as one might hear pinging around a submarine.

Burial, indeed.

His willful personal obscurity, his recognizable sound, the purposeful abstracted nature of this release. It all adds up to a pretty seamless aesthetic — admirable. But difficult.

I have to put up a defense here for what might be, again, a more populist response to Burial’s use of female vocal samples. Sure the diva vocal is clichéd, easy, cheesy. But Burial repurposed those samples on ambient layer in the density of his sound — quite stripped of any put-on, strained for sexiness (and the result was more honestly sexy.) Those sounds nod to not only the bleak walk home at 5am, but also to the connection and warmth of that dance floor at 2 AM, and importantly, nod to the roots of club music, a haven for black and gay men.
I guess I dig it as sign, and signifier.

In hindsight, the track I heard on Pandora was Moth as I remember the surface noise at the beginning of the recording. Funny how one remembers what one dislikes.

On third listen, this track lacks what I like about some other Four Tet songs e.g. Swimmer from the Ringer EP, namely, a strong sense of mechanistic and precise rhythm. This one is propulsive but just not as crisp.

As far as switching titles, I blame it on abstraction. This might never have happened in the more concrete world of A and B sides on a 45 record.

Alan, regarding the “diva figuration”: Yeah, that’s a clear distinction: (1) how that sound — a woman’s erotic-yet-generic, wan-yet-charismatic voice — functions in electronic music, and (2) the separate issue of whether there’s an appeal to the listener. They are separate matters, I agree. You bring it around with the “In McDonalds” track, and your sense that to Burial (you have as Bill Cowan, and I saw “William Bevan” in The Independent — any sense of which is what?) that presence is a representation of a sense of loss, traced to early, now halcyon house-partying. Makes sense to me. As such voices go, the one on this track bothers me less than most, but still a distraction when it comes around. And now when I listen to it, I’m going to hear your nostalgia tinge.

Lauren: If it’s not too much to ask, and only if your listening is taking you in that direction, could you talk a bit more about the “ghostly ambient whispers,” since Alan and I found them off-putting?

And Colin, thanks for having posted. I’ve been listening to the latest Jon Hassell a lot, and I heard what you hear — much as I hear a lot of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, as well as some of Peter Gabriel’s soundtrack work (Birdy, Last Temptation). (That said, I also hear a lot of Bitches Brew and In a Silent Way in the latest Hassell, so there’s always these cycles of repetition and homage.) I have a side question for you (if you happen upon this post again), which is what you think of the “packaging” of the release, given your website’s (hardformat.org) focus on the packaging/design of music.