Inspired by the Rest Zone of the long-defunct Millennium Dome, ๐๐๐ป๐ด ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐'s latest LP draws on the pairโs shared sense of millennial melancholia across twelve tracks of submerged songwriting and woozy ambience. Combining unorthodox production techniques, with an ear for melody, the result is a spellbinding reflection on growing up with the 21st century.
Created for the dawn of a new century, the Millennium Dome has come to be seen as a symbol of the failed optimism of the 1990s. For ๐๐๐ป๐ด ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐, though, it represents something else. Through conversations about the space, the pair recalled how it felt when they visited on school trips as children. The wonder it provoked, the atmosphere it created: idealistic and hopeful. Built on the Greenwich peninsula, where time โliterally beginsโ, the Dome was a monument to a bygone age of hopefulness โ a mood that coloured the childhoods of a generation now approaching their thirties.
In particular, ๐๐๐ป๐ด ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ remember the Millennium Domeโs Rest Zone โ a section of the exhibition dedicated to wellness and renewal, where visitors were invited to lie down and let soft, pulsing lights wash over them. The experience was soundtracked by the Longplayer, a 1000-year long composition played on singing bowls due to finish its repetitive cycles some time in 2999. It was in this strange, turn-of-the-century sanctuary, that the duo first heard ambient music โ itโs a place theyโve never forgotten. For a band concerned with memory, this pocket of peace has come to represent a calm before the storm โ a distinctly relatable ennui for children of the nineties, who came of age as the supercharged world of the future began to crash.
โ๐๐ก๐ค๐ช๐๐๐๐ฃ๐ ๐๐ค๐ฌ๐๐ง๐๐จ ๐๐๐ง๐๐๐๐๐ฃโ then, sits in the foggy terrain between the optimism of childhood and the slump of the present day. Far from being defeatist or nostalgic, it is concerned with the disorienting sensations of growing up and remembering; an album about memories of the future.
The LP also contains their most direct music to date, as the pair swap obscured melodies for comparatively clear singing. Take โHow?โ, for instance, a plaintive ballad that blooms through the rolling fug of cloudy organs; or penultimate track โA Thousand People Floatingโ, which blends Rapsonโs vulnerable vocal performance with soaring trance-like euphoria. Elsewhere, their ability to create soundscapes that are once unplaceable while feeling strangely familiar is on full display. Instrumental โAV Duetโ bobs and weaves with childlike energy, while โBefore the Crashโ sets burnt woodwinds against a gently clanking beat.
โ๐๐ก๐ค๐ช๐๐๐๐ฃ๐...โ comes at a significant moment for the duo. Over the summer the pair were composing and recording music with producer Steve Guy Hellier, formerly of โDeath In Vegasโ, for Mark Leckey's Tate Britain show 'โO' Magic Power Of Bleaknessโ', which opened on 24th of September 2019, and runs until the 5th of January next year. The show โ a contemporary fairy-story set against a lifesize replica of a motorway bridge โ has proved the perfect playground for their sensibilities. Married to Leckeyโs similar taste for the warped magic of memory, their compositions play a vital role in one of the most talked about installations of the year.
The pair performed at Tate Britain on the 29th November 2019, as part of โIn the Bridgeโ โ an evening of music and performance taking place inside the exhibition.
credits
released November 29, 2019
All tracks written, performed and produced by ๐๐๐ป๐ด ๐๐ฎ๐ฟ๐
Sleeve and label design by ๐๐ฑ๐ฎ๐บ ๐๐น๐ฒ๐๐ฐ๐ต๐น๐ [https://www.instagram.com/arma.ndo.2020/]
Mastered by ๐ฅ๐๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ ๐๐น๐ฒ๐ฟ๐๐ฎ๐๐ [http://www.rupertclervaux.com/]
supported by 7 fans who also own โSlouching Towards Meridianโ
Burial fully realises the ambient aspects of his work that he has been leaning towards over the past few years. Whether you like it or not, you can't deny that this is undeniably Burial. Kutkh_Jackdaw