10 years on: 7 artists tell us how Burial's 'Untrue' changed their lives

This weekend, November 5, marks a decade since the release of an album that sent shock waves through the world of electronic music that are still being felt today. Burial's second album 'Untrue' landed on Hyperdub, and over the course of 13 tracks explored a depth of sound and emotion that has provided rich inspiration for producers across the globe.

We spoke to seven artists to share their thoughts on what makes 'Untrue' so vital.

It was Kode 9 who first introduced me to Burial. He played a Burial dub as the final track in his set for my Radio 1 special 'Dubstep Warz'. I remember the magic of Burial's sound touching me in that moment and I've been captivated ever since.

Will (Burial) is genuinely one of the most reclusive humans I have ever known. At the club nights DMZ and FWD>> around 2005-2006 he would very occasionally materialise. Only a handful of us knew what he looked like, and it was fascinating to see him move so freely and anonymously in clubs where everybody knew his name.

Burial's music mirrors what I know of his character, in its purity. I think he captures an atmosphere that resonates with so many of us, because we know that feeling - somewhere between the spaces in which we are truly lost on a dancefloor, and poetry of the ravers' dawn. As lovers of electronic music, we inhabit that place physically and cerebrally. A million fragments of that narrative abide in Burial's music, and nobody has ever transposed them into sound as beautifully.

‘Untrue’ abides in my life as a place of refuge against what David Bowie described as 'the tyranny of the mainstream'. A record that soars in terms of creative realisation, so far above most other albums that have had this degree of commercial success. ‘Untrue’ is endlessly inspiring and intimate; the beautiful fragmented details in sound are still revealing themselves, even now. Avant-garde, timeless, a modern classic.

I remember a time when I was going to FWD>> a lot. I think Kode9 was playing one night and he opened with ‘Archangel’. It was when there were rumours of a new Burial album flying around so everyone was just like, “what the fuck is this? This is just incredible.” Burial has such a special place in people’s hearts, as an artist who had released that first record that just sounded like nothing else.

There was also that thing where no-one knew who he was, which is always the sort of cliché with him. I mean, even The Sun got involved in that. But I swear, I think I had worked out who he was. I kind of had this idea that I kept seeing the same guy at the parties and there was always this thing like, “I bet that must be Burial”. It was always something you talked about afterwards. He was just so iconic at that time, and still is. He was one of those artists who taught me you could make music that had its own identity - it was all completely him, it was so unmistakably him. There weren’t many artists making that sort of music at the time that could really say that. As a young artist, it was really inspirational to see someone like him carve out his own space. I remember going to Rough Trade back in 2007 because Pinch had a new album out, and then of course ‘Untrue’ was out that day. So, I went down to Rough Trade East before work right when it opened to grab the new Pinch album and the new Burial album, and I threw a massive tantrum at the staff there because they didn’t have the Burial one.

People always used to talk about how he famously made all his tracks on Sound Forge as well. From that you sort of understand, “Fuck, I don’t have to learn all this stuff and know how machines work. I can literally just apply my brain to a tiny piece of software and do something great.” Also, just being a London musician myself and growing up listening to similar music to Burial, I’ve always had a soft-spot for those UK electronic music guys who continue the tradition of London having its own kind of influence.

I'd say it's my favourite electronic album of all time. If not my favourite album outright. It just meant a lot when it came out and I still listen to it all the time. I was all kinds of fucked up then. I'm pretty sure I was on all kinds of heroin. I feel like it was the real first time, in electronic music, something hit me on so many emotional levels. It was just so stark and extremely fucking sad, but it's also very warm and comforting. It's definitely got me through a lot of tough times.

I was also obsessed with London as a kid, so I think hearing 'Untrue' made me picture what I thought London would be like. Really grimy, dark skies in South London. It just made me feel a way other records haven't made me feel.

I was very late being introduced to ‘Untrue’ - around 2012. It was my friends who had always been more inclined towards dance music than I had at that point who introduced me. The album blew me away, I'd never heard anything beat based that carried so much emotional weight whilst carrying a punch too. The way which background noise is used also reminded me a lot of Max Richter who was very influential on me at the time.

It sounds so tortured. The hazy wind effects and other background noises combined with distraught vocals and cinematic synths give the impression of the music always searching for a resting place. At points you have moments of beauty which break out like the ending of 'Shell of Light', but as a whole the album is restless.

The album was played a lot driving around in my car the summer after graduating University in 2012. To me it brings back memories of not really knowing the next step at this point in life. Driving late at night with no real place to be.

Looking back since 2007 we've seen a wave of producers become more interested in exploring deeper depths of emotion in dance music with huge credit towards ‘Untrue’. People have become much more fascinated than before in exploring elements outside of the pure euphoria that we would traditionally associate with dance music, and they have started looking inwards too. This is certainly how it's influenced myself at least.

I can’t even remember how I first came about Hyperdub and Burial, it just seems so inherent to underground music, but I was definitely in school at the time and I must’ve just binged on it, soundtracking the years of my teenage angst.

‘Untrue’ is incredibly influential. It’s a seminal, iconic piece of work which massively changed the face of electronic music. Fusing the sounds of garage, dubstep and ambient in such a creative, ethereal and unique way was a catalyst for so many musical trends and patterns in dance music. The fashion for mixing club music with pitch-bended r’n’b vocals, you could arguably say, stems from Burial. It was robbed of a Mercury Prize award in my opinion, this is the shit that made me want to DJ.

It came about when I started experimenting and learning how to DJ so there’s something really familiar, nostalgic and warm about the album when I listen to it. It reminds me of a period of my life where I was just figuring out who I wanted to be and what I wanted to do, and inspired me to make the decisions I’ve made to get to where I am now.

I love how versatile it is. You can listen to it anywhere and it just works. It’s a masterpiece fit for the club (I’ll always remember them Oneman blends), gym, shower and no-one will ever tell you to turn it off.

I discovered burial on a message board around the time of the first full length record. Then I remember the day I heard 'Archangel' - I was so shocked that I literally got up from my desk and left my apartment in Brooklyn and walked around Manhattan going to every record store trying to find a copy of it for sale.

‘Untrue’ kind of brought to completion a thought I had been developing listening to experimental and ambient music for years: paradoxically when sound is unburdened of its task of having to fit in as music, its musical potential actually becomes unrestricted and infinite. This point can be seen at so many levels across this record: consider the vocal performances alone, if you can call them that, and the way they express pure infinite affect.

While ‘Untrue’ liberated me to do a lot more singing and sound design, Burial’s entire career has really taught me to be emotionally open in a special way. For that I owe him an unrepayable debt. He also just taught me a lot about incomplete pictures and the way they amplify the emotional charge of a piece of work.

Burial was a big influence on the sound design and the sensitivity, both sonically and emotionally speaking, of my second album ‘Total Loss’. My second record has a lot to do with mourning the death of my friend, and Burial’s music really taught me a lot about how to interact more honestly with the ghosts of my life.

I’ve never met Burial but I would really love to. Someone I know worked on a moving crew with him in London, packing up and moving houses for people. Apparently he's injured his back doing that, and I have a chronic pain situation with my own back, so I feel like we would just have so much to talk about LOL.

The things Burial is influenced by, basically pirate radio music, are also my main influences, they are where I come from. Equally there's so much emotion in Burial's music, so much loneliness, that's what I relate to most. For me it's the sound of empty clubs, the day after, the vibes in the walls, and I'm deeply interested in that. I always was but ‘Untrue’ expressed it beautifully.

I was starting to work on ‘I'm New Here’ in 2007 and listening to Burial a lot; I wasn't conscious of it at the time but it influenced my production of that record. Whilst you can hear Burials influences when you listen to ‘Untrue’, by creating a more sort of dusty and fragile version of 2-step garage he made something totally original. Kind of what British music has always done best: take some existing elements and make something totally new and a bit wonky and fucked up with it.

I also want to say I've loved everything Burial has done since, I'm basically a total fan of him and his music, and I think it will last forever and will always be discovered and listened to, because it’s such honest and timeless music, and he is a beautiful soul and you can hear that in his productions.