Burial

Mostly, I want this to be a shout out to the Burial dude, who is apparently 'just a guy' from South London. I'm not gonna claim I can keep track of all the different pirate radio breeds and spliced strains of urban musicks that seep out thru pirate radio and what have you over there... I remember reading some kinda mag article about 2step and garage a couple years back, and yeah my interest was piqued, but I think this was even before I knew about Forced Exposure and the wee number of releases that they manage to pack in. So my initial exposure to such things was, like, the first Streets album and then I remember having trouble finding Run The Road and there's just massive gaps in there. So by no means should I be feeling I have the background to speak on these things. But speaking wrongly is a pretty major reason of why the internet exists, so I'm just throwing this out to thank you, anonymous South London guy, for making this album, and for somehow lining shit up so I could listen to it tonight. It worked out really well.

See, my girlfriend is training for a marathon. I, not wanting to bloat up at home while she exhibits grim determination and iron thighs, somehow managed to quit smokes (unless drinking w/ friends...) and take part in most of her runs. Tonight that entailed 7 miles under some intense overcast skies, the type I've gotta think are a dime a trillion 'cross the pond, at twilight. We found a new branch of the extended bike path that goes for a good ways along some train tracks, past plenty of loading docks and a coal dump, and then splits off on this arrow-straight ditchrun that goes farther than we ran out. By the time we turned around, it was well past official twilight time and on into deep dusk. Bikes would occasionally whir past, generally shocking the righteous shit out of my nightblind ass. At one point, before I got back to what I would call 'populated Madison', it sounded like we were getting chased by some incredibly pissed off geese. Didn't know that geese could do the whole terrifying apparition thing, but they dove into the role with gusto, to say the least. Never saw the bansheefuckers. Thank god. I bet they had teeth.

Anyways, right around the final mile and a half, I start noticing lightning. Not suprising, since like I said it was overcast when we left. Hell, the first thing the radio announcer told me when the alarm went off in the morning was not to expect much sun today. Which was actually bullshit, 'cause I wore the classic long-sleeve under short-sleeve tee combo with wild expectation and was let down. Until the run. And then the lightning.

So anyways, we get home and I take a super quick shower so I can run and snag some Budweisers 'round the corner before 9:00. I already know I'm gonna put on the Burial disk when I get back, and I'm kinda sweatpalmed 'cause I'd read reviews around the internet (google 'em, they're all over) and somewhere described it as driving thru sleet in a city or something. And I like that. And the weather seems roughly appropriate, semiapocalyptic, and so I get back and throw it on and shit, man it's really good. I feel all kindsa things coming from it, but also a numbness, and I don't know, all the fucking hip things in the world are wrapped in this thing, but not because it wants to be hip or even really knows hip. It mostly knows some dimness and some reflected lights from different oblique sources, and yeah plenty of slush, and 20,000,000 other hunks of flesh and gear that I just am gonna have to digest over the next season or 4. Criminy. Jiminy. No. Wait. Partway through Prayer, a tornado warning siren comes on from out in the city. It hits just the right pitch, subtle oscillations making me get up and creep about my apartment trying to figure out if this is coming from the speakers or thru the deckdoor... and... shit... the siren dies off, with that mourning fucking downward glissando, right at the end of the fucking track. You nearly destroyed a city, dude. Cool.

So thanks, from the breadbasket, the heartland, over here in collegevue, USA. Ya done right by all manner of musicks and spirits and such. Thanks much and for anybody else reading this lonely ghost shit, search it.