Untrue (album)

''Untrue'' is the second and most recent 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

Following the release of his self-titled debut album in 2006, Burial began work on a second studio album. 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. 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. 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 imselfup". He produced much of ''Untrue'' "in the dead of the night", 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."

Burial produced ''Untrue'' using the software Sound Forge. 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." 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. 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. He also frequently sampled atmospheric sounds such as rain and vinyl hiss, 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'', and the sound of car keys from a Vin Diesel film.

Composition

''Untrue'', which has been categorised as a dubstep album and described as a tribute to UK garage, retains several musical elements that marked the sound of ''Burial'', including heavy use of sampling and Burial's trademark skipped drum patterns. In contrast to Burial's past work, however, the tracks on ''Untrue'' more prominently feature pitch-shifted and time-stretched vocals, mainly sourced from manipulated samples of R&B tracks. Throughout the album's run time, the use of beats is varied; tracks such as "Archangel" and "Near Dark" feature uptempo, skittering beats, while tracks such as the beatless interludes "Endorphin" and "In McDonalds" place emphasis on isolated vocal samples overlaid on ambience.

The mix of vocals and skipped drum patterns on ''Untrue'' has been likened to 2-step garage and early jungle music. Dan Hancox of ''The Guardian'' wrote that while the album is "still distinctly DIY, some of the melancholy of Burial's debut has dissipated on 'Untrue'' which is more heavily loaded with garage-inflected vocals, and more upbeat as a consequence." Dave Stelfox of ''The Village Voice'' expressed a similar sentiment, noting a "shift from dystopian melancholy to restrained optimism." Critics have noted that the increased emphasis on vocal effects on ''Untrue'' over his previous works contributes to its more emotional nature. ''Pitchfork'' critic Philip Sherburne wrote that ''Untrue'' is "not a pop album, at least not by Top 40 standards, but his voices—male, female, and ambiguous—wriggle deep into the listener's consciousness." Burial uses pitch-shifting to make male vocals sound feminine and female vocals sound masculine, resulting in the album's vocals taking on a more androgynous nature. Sherburne stated that "they toy with r&b's conventions, heavy with breath and rippling with trills and melisma, some of it digitally imposed."

References to angels and supernatural phenomena recur in several of the album's vocal samples and track titles, including "Archangel" and "Ghost Hardware", and Burial has stated that these were intended to connect to people "maybe taking a battering in their life, but hostill handle themselves with grace". He added: "When you think of some of the things people go through, everyday troubles, relationship things, other stuff. Everyone knows those sorts of feelings. I wanted to do songs about that low-key stuff."

Release

On 17 October 2007, Scottish musician and Hyperdub label owner Kode9 appeared as a guest on the BBC
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