Burial
Untrue
(Hyperdub, 2007)

I blame LCD Soundsystem, frankly. I was mad at James Murphy’s effortless ascent to the top scrap of the techno heap for the first half of the decade. So what if this aging hipster could program his 808? He couldn’t bring it to life. Then he did, with Sound of Silver, which has five good songs in a row: A funny, rave-wise David Byrne impression, a typical DFA cowbell jam, a typical Murphy sarcastic rant with an actual hook, a sappy earbud ballad, and one classic, “All My Friends”—seven minutes of Steve Reich-like bliss that could’ve been groomed into a Killers hit. Then Murphy gave up the deep cuts and set his studio on auto-masterpiece before sitting back in for the mediocre “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down”, a wan piano ballad out of his métier which helped sour techno for me in 2007. But then everyone started exclaiming, “Burial! He’s done it again.” I didn’t look up until the word “Maxinquaye” was being thrown around. Suddenly, I needed to know everything about dubstep—who was this guy that dare challenge the champion on my desert island of trip-hop?

Sure enough, I threw on Untrue and was underwhelmed. I loved the title and the great drum sounds, but what else was there? Any anonymous studio tech could fashion such a pristine clockwork tick from his rhythm makers, but like the case of Mr. Murphy, I didn’t hear them sing. And after a month of pressure, on-off tries, and contrarian dares, I left Untrue—which I ultimately found repetitive and underdeveloped—off my year-end list and filed it.

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