Peter Holslin jogs on a treadmill… in space
Burial’s new song “Temple Sleeper” reminds me of the themes to those cheesy ’90s sci-fi TV shows that were awesome precisely because of the low-budget special effects and space-time continuum-warping plotlines. The white-label cut (out via UK’s Keysound) is upbeat by Burial’s standards, and what sets it apart from the likes of Quantum Leap and Stargate SG-1 is the layer of dystopian crud — ghostly whooshes, dewy crackles, fragmented vocal murmurs, cracking metal — while twisting for just over six minutes through ascendant synth lines and aerobic rave beats.
“Temple Sleeper,” a sample of which is posted below, works in a perhaps more whimsical vein compared to the corroded and percussive “Lambeth,” the last track that surfaced from the elusive William Bevan. This new one almost feels tossed off, with its sudden shifts and cut-and-paste structure. But if there were an actual TV show with this as the music, I’d totally watch it.
