Burial: Street Halo
Album Review of Street Halo, by Burial [2011, Hyperdub]
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You're in the back of a van with your hands bound and a hood pulled over your head. Light slips in, muted through the rough weave, leaving impressions of increasingly labyrinthine alleyways.
Microtonal ululation from a distant mosque melds with American R&B coming out of the van speakers. Tires pulse over uneven ground, punctuated by the sharp clack of beads swinging from the rearview.
Street noise fades and you know you're in an empty neighborhood. The van stops.
Hands pull you out of the van and everything slows for a moment; you can smell the sun coming up. Thrust up stairs, pushed into a chair, hood pulled off. The city is bathed in morning light. Stare out the window and wait. It seems like hours before you realize that the zipties have been cut.
Wandering through the streets. You don't remember what came before this, and you can't think about what will happen after. No one is up yet. Feral animals scavenge as you pass shuttered windows, walking back down towards the pillars of the city.
They reach up skyward, and an endlessness rises and fills the cavity below your chest.