Burial’s “last interview” from 2007 published in full for the first time

The full transcript from Burial’s last interview to date has been released for the first time.

Writer Dan Hancox, who penned the interview, shared the full 3,000 version via his Honor Oak Riot newsletter. The conversation took place in 2007 as part of a piece for The Guardian just three weeks before of the release of the producer’s seminal album, ‘Untrue’. In his  account of the meeting, Hancox says he agreed to meet the elusive artist at Balham Station in South London. Burial wore a bright red jacket “for identification purposes” as Hancox didn’t know what he looked like. After meeting, they did the interview at Hancox’s flat in nearby Tooting.

“Once we got talking; he speaks with a passion and intensity like few people I have ever met, let alone interviewed,” Hancox said. “But he was wary of exposure, of emerging into the light, when, and this is totally fair enough, all he ever wanted was to lurk in the shadows at the back of the club, and make tunes in his bedroom while everyone else was asleep.”

In the interview, Burial stresses that the tracks he makes were never intended for club use. “They’re more influenced by when you come back from being out somewhere, in a minicab or a night bus, or walking home across London late at night, and you’ve still got the music kind of echoing in you.”

“It’s pretty sad, but my music probably is just for moody people to walk across London in the rain to,” he adds. “That might sound rubbish, but most of my experience in life has been exactly that.”

The artist also reveals that his music “was never designed to be heard by anyone”. He also spoke about the various styles of club music evolving in London at that time: “I don’t see it as independent genres, dubstep, jungle, hardcore — I see it as all one thing. I think about it like that, I’m romantic as fuck about it. I don’t like this idea that club music should be a disposable thing, that’s bullshit.”

Read the full transcript of the conversation here.

In August, the UK artist shared two new tracks, ‘Comafields’ and ‘Imaginary Hospital’, via Hyperdub.