Untrue (album)
Untrue is the second studio album by British electronic music producer Burial. Released on 5 November 2007 by Hyperdub, the album was produced by Burial in 2007 using the digital audio editing software Sound Forge. Untrue builds on the sound established by Burial on his eponymous debut album from the previous year, notably through its more prominent use of pitch-shifted and time-stretched vocal samples. The album, like Burial's previous work, also draws on influences from UK garage, ambient, and hardcore music.
Untrue received widespread acclaim from critics, who praised Burial's production style on the album and generally hailed it as a progression and improvement over his prior musical output. It placed on the albums charts of Belgium and the United Kingdom and produced a single, "Ghost Hardware". Untrue later appeared in several publications' lists of the year's best albums, and received nominations for the Mercury Prize and the Shortlist Music Prize.
In the years following its release, Untrue has since been viewed as a landmark album in the dubstep genre, and in electronic music in general. In a 2017 article, Pitchfork called the album "the most important electronic album of the century so far".
Production[edit]
Following the release of his self-titled debut album in 2006, Burial began work on a second studio album.[1] He felt pressured to follow up Burial and worked several hours a day creating new songs and learning how to use new sound-editing programs.[1] He produced various songs that he described as "darker" and "more technical", but scrapped the material because he grew tired of them from the long hours he spent on their production.[1] Burial then decided to take a new approach; instead of spending extended periods of time working on individual songs, he sought to "make a glowing, buzzing album, do it really fast; to cheer [himself] up".[2] He produced much of Untrue "in the dead of the night",[3] later recalling: "I would sit around waiting for night to fall, wait for summer to end. Or I would go out, wait for it to get dark, and then I'd go back and work on it, sort of hypnotise myself."[2]
Burial produced Untrue using the software Sound Forge.[1] He aimed to create songs that reflected his musical preferences, particularly UK hardcore music, while also incorporating "a dose of real life... something people can relate to."[1] Burial was particularly motivated to add vocals to the songs on Untrue, influenced by the vocal-based work of producers such as A Guy Called Gerald, Foul Play, and Omni Trio; he cited the "girl-next-door" quality of the vocals in their music as having inspired his own approach to vocal production.[1] In the absence of a session vocalist, Burial had friends sing over the phone and used samples of a cappellas, editing individual words to form sentences.[3] He also frequently sampled atmospheric sounds such as rain and vinyl hiss,[1] as well as incidental noises taken from a variety of sources, including the video game Metal Gear Solid, Elliot Goldenthal's soundtrack for Alien 3,[4] and the sound of car keys from a Vin Diesel film.[2]
Release[edit]
On 17 October 2007, Scottish musician and Hyperdub label owner Kode9 appeared as a guest on the BBC programme Radio 1's Experimental Show, where he played several tracks from Untrue.[14] Following much anticipation, Untrue was released by Hyperdub on 5 November 2007.[15] It was released as thirteen-track Digipak CD and a nine-track double vinyl LP on which some beatless pieces were edited out.[16] The 2016 reissue of the vinyl LP reintroduced the beatless pieces. Untrue debuted at number 121 on the UK Albums Chart for the week ending 17 November 2007.[17] In the Belgian region of Flanders, Untrue spent one week at number 57 on the Ultratop 50 albums chart.[18] On the Ultratop Alternative Albums chart, it debuted at number 23 and remained on the chart for eight weeks.[18] Hyperdub issued "Archangel" as the album's first single, and it peaked at number 21 on the Flanders Ultratip singles chart.[19] "Ghost Hardware", which had previously been released on the Burial EP of the same name in June 2007, was made available for free download in the United Kingdom as the iTunes Store single of the week on 10 December 2007.[20]
Accolades[edit]
Untrue appeared on numerous publications' year-end and decade-end top albums lists. Based on aggregated review scores, Untrue is ranked the most acclaimed album of 2007—tied with The Field's From Here We Go Sublime—by Metacritic.[32] Resident Advisor and Sputnikmusic named it the best album of the year,[33][34] while it was ranked the year's second best album by Fact and The Wire.[35][36] Untrue also placed within the top ten of year-end best album lists by The Observer and Pitchfork,[37][38] as well as at number 27 on The Village Voice's year-end Pazz & Jop critics' poll.[39] In his Pazz & Jop ballot, poll creator Robert Christgau ranked it the tenth best album of the year.[40] The album was nominated for a Mercury Prize in 2008, losing to Elbow's The Seldom Seen Kid.[41] It was also nominated for the 2007 Shortlist Music Prize, which was eventually awarded to Feist's The Reminder.[42] Untrue experienced a 1004% sales increase in the week following the Mercury Prize awards ceremony,[41] allowing it to re-enter the UK Albums Chart and reach a new peak of number 58.[43] The critical and commercial success of Untrue prompted Burial, whose identity until then had been anonymous, to disclose his real name—William Bevan—and give out interviews to the media.[44]
Fact named Untrue the best album of the 2000s and stated that Burial "stripped UK garage of its twitchy micro-textures and created a fabulous new strain of future soul."[45] Resident Advisor listed it as the third best album of the decade, with reviewer Derek Miller calling it "a mastery of sample stitching".[46] Several other publications, including Pitchfork,[47] Slant Magazine,[48] and Stylus Magazine,[49] included Untrue in their decade-end lists of best albums. NPR named the album one of the 50 Most Important Recordings of the Decade,[50] while The A.V. Club put it on its list of the best electronic albums of the decade.[51] Rolling Stone placed Untrue at number eleven on their list of the greatest EDM albums of all time,[52] while Q listed it as one of three essential dubstep releases.[53] In 2017, critic Simon Reynolds, writing in Pitchfork, assessed Untrue as the "most important electronic album of the century so far", citing its impact on the British dance scene "in the form of a self-conscious turn towards emotionality: not the primary-color, explosive emotions of old skool rave, but subtle shades of introspective melancholy".[54] In 2019, the album was ranked 31st on The Guardian's 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century list.[55]