On the rayless midrange and tottering beat that Burial co-produced with Jamie Woon, the latter sings to us about what’s befallen him: He’s a vampire, he’s in trouble, he just left a bar. Or, as the video might tell you, he’s roaming a forest of dancing mantids. One of which may be true, though it’s never clear. Woon does, in any scenario, sing wonderfully, channelling a crystal Michael Jackson from a starrier time. Perhaps if the two had been fused and paired with Burial on the set of a Blade Runner reboot. Woon croons of his plans to “steal the night air from the Heavens” and long after you hear this, you’ll be singing the same. Burial’s cinematic pads overarch the pop arrangement and deep-laid beneath it lay whirling dubstep insinuations, coils of bass that do enough to suggest his knowable sound without taking Woon, as he did in the sub-shattering “Wayfaring Stranger” remix from 2007, too far down the frequency range.
Accompanying the single are a slew of remixes that do seldem but extend or detract from the original’s excellence: There’s plenty good to hear but little to remember. A more valuable inclusion may have been a mix reworked solely by Burial wherein those wormlike bass sounds could have unfurled and, using the filter-swept vocal sound achieved in Ramadanman’s remix (the best of the three) bent light around the silky night-sound sound that seems like such pop magic in the original.
Jamie Woon – “Night Air”
Jamie Woon – “Night Air” (Ramadanman Refix)
