Steve Gilmore Reviews: Burp - herbst. unser kahn

Hear The Track Here

Artist: Burp
Title: herbst. unser kahn

One of Soundclick's most original artists, Burp has long been one of my prime favourites ever since I first started reviewing on this site. His name, of course, at that time was Emetrics, but the music has always been the same. A brand of experimental electronica that has some intense rhythmic qualities I haven't heard from any other artist - online or off. Suffice to say that my collection of material from this artist is now into double figures and there aren't that many of those lingering on my hard drive. He has also featured in my year end Stevies awards every year since I started them in 2003, and that is no mean feat either. So it goes without saying that anything new from this artist is looked forward to almost as my boys look forward to Christmas...

and they've started talking about that now.... :D

While I was downloading this track for review, I was browsing Burp's message board and I saw the comment 'You're insanely brilliant!! ' and I have to say I agree with that wholeheartedly - both the insanity and the brilliance. Truth is, Burp's music is a clever mixture of both musical insanity and cleverness and I have no hesitation in recommending that you listen to ANY of his tracks. So, what's herbst. unser khan about other than being somewhat Germanic? If you needed to reference my comment about intense rhythmic qualities, listen to the very first twenty seconds or so of this track and all will become clear. No one does it this quite like Burp, although I have known Refrag to get close to it once or twice. Burp is German, and a lot of that countries musical heritage influences this track because it almost instantly put me in mind of something by Kraftwerk.

It should be said, however, that Kraftwerk were nothing like this silly. Unike most Burp tracks this one does have lyrics (of a sort) that are on the website in both German and English, and were inspired by the work of Artur Rimbaud - a French poet and contemporary of Baudelaire, Verlaine and other literary giants of the 18th century. Don't expect then, to have them make much sense because they don't Unless you are talking about pure imagery of course and in that respect they are the brightest of pictures. Like a lot of Burp's finer works, this one will take some considerable time to digest and mull over but already there are large sections of it that appeal to my own sense of of what Burp is about. Not, to my ears, up there with some of his finer - and more accessible - work but eminently worthy nonetheless. One day, my children, all music will sound like this...

Excellent experimental, and it's not often I can marry those two words together.