- Burial returns to dance music and Kode9 goes back to footwork on a rock solid split single.
- fabric Originals has pulled off some impressive maneuvers since launching last year. With releases from legends like DJ Bone, Helena Hauff and Marcel Dettmann so far, the label lives up to the London club's vaunted history and reputation. So it wasn't exactly shocking to see a poster appear teasing a new Kode9 and Burial single (especially after FABRICLIVE 100), though it's always exciting to see either producer away from home base Hyperdub. Infirmary / Unknown Summer is a one-off split single that does exactly what this kind of release is supposed to do: offer up two tracks that don't really fit anywhere in either artist's catalogue, out of context, as a sort of collector's item. And while neither cut will blow a diehard fan's socks off, both sides of the 12-inch feature these veteran artists working to their strengths.
Kode9's "Infirmary" is a lengthy footwork track built around a jazzy sample—piano, vocals and horns—that comes off like a wizened, world-weary version of DJ Rashad's Double Cup. There's plenty of space between the drums and samples, and every once in a while Kode9 lets the sample play out before pulling the track back together, until he sprints off into a pseudo-jungle ending. Like a combination of "Xingfu Lu" and his most recent album Escapology, "Infirmary" has a strange, hard-to-follow pulse that feels intuitive in his hands.
Burial's contribution is one of his more conventional tracks in a while, and a welcome return to dance music after his recent forays into formless ambient. Though "Unknown Summer" still has plenty of starts and stops, they're employed well here, creating tension between sections and building a suite-like structure that that slowly descends into melancholy. Beginning with choral vocals and beat that reminds me of "Raver," "Unknown Summer" has a flickering, candlelit quality. The drums are there, but they're shoved into the background.
Several breakdowns and a slightly too-familiar sample from the 1984 documentary Streetwise, (about homeless kids in Seattle) lead the track towards one of those beautiful Burial passages—the kind that you sit through a whole record to hear. The second half of "Unknown Summer" throbs like an irregular heartbeat, calling back to his haunting Four Tet collaboration "Moth." Like that cut, there's something about these sounds—hushed, squeaky, almost baroque—that still possesses some magical quality, like a story you're not supposed to hear, or a scene you're not supposed to witness. Even all these years later, Burial still has the power to stop you in your tracks.
Tracklist01. Kode9 - Infirmary
02. Burial - Unknown Summer