Since ever his second record boosted him into the Olympus of electronic music, Burial’s fans have hoped for a remake. But instead of finally delivering the long awaited »Untrue 2.0« with this new »Kindred EP«, the musician from South-London rather keeps developing his sound-design and ties in with last year’s »Street Halo EP«. The title track sounds most familiar, a gloomy garage-epic, so far Burial’s closest jungle-reference due to its metallic beats and its grim bass-line. What follows is the straight, up-tempo track »Loner«, for Burial a very dancefloor-orientated one – although the joy for dancing gets somehow lost in the depressing atmosphere of threatening echoes, coarse crackling and lost voices of phantoms. In the end, with the highlight-track »Ashtray Wasp«, he goes on an expedition through two soundscapes, of which both are situated somewhere within the coordinate system of house music, though they couldn’t be more different concerning tempo and mood. All in all, the EP is best characterized by a cineastic-dramaturgic approach, through which Burial runs occasionally extra-long tracks in multiple scenes and makes them take unexpected turns. The experimental house-atmosphere which is used for most of the scenes is brimful of his trademark-sound and gives us a slight idea of what’s probably to be expected from his third album. With the »Kindred EP«, Burial is set for new horizons, but doesn’t leave »Untrue« too far behind. It’s a balancing act which could have hardly worked out better.
Kindred EP
