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One Track Mind: Teatre

The Lithuanian ambient and electronic artist on the sacred power of a decades old Burial cut.

The premise of One Track Mind is pretty simple: I ask artists to pick one track that means a lot to them – either something they’ve discovered recently, something that’s been with them for years, or one that reminds them of a specific time in their life or career – and tell me what makes it so special to them. I get to talk to the artists I love, and they get to talk about the artists they love. Love all round!

Lithuanian producer Teatre has spent the last few years building a distinct corner of experimental electronic music that moves between ambient, wave, techno and more abstract forms. The project of Viktoras Urbaitis, his work has gradually shifted from the colder, urban feel of earlier releases into something softer and more reflective, while remaining rooted in Lithuania’s experimental scene.

His new album, All Constellations Weaving Into One, arrives via Amulet of Tears and feels intensely intimate. Written chronologically between September and November 2025 following a period of creative stillness, the record unfolds like a personal sketchbook, built from hazy synth textures, 90s sample fragments and field recordings captured around Vilnius’ Antakalnis district.

There are traces of Cocteau Twins, Vangelis and Grouper throughout, though the album never feels pinned to any one influence. Guest appearances from Ieva Semėnaitė and Eglė Pundzevičiūtė add another layer to its dreamlike atmosphere, particularly on the beautifully blurred “Perseide” and “Sapiegų Park”.

For his One Track Mind, Teatre has selected a painfully beautiful track from one of the most celebrated and influential artists of modern times.

Teatre on Burial – Forgive

It wasn’t easy to pick one track to write about – there are so many songs all across the spectrum from shoegaze to singer-songwriter to electronic (especially ones with lyrics) that I’m really connected to. But coincidence would have it that a few days ago – May 15th – was the 20th anniversary of Burial’s self-titled album debut, so I decided to pen a short tribute to one of my all-time favourite artists.

When people talk about Burial, it’s usually about common themes: dark, skeletal beats, haunting urban atmospheres, unorthodox sampling, all of which, of course, he does with superb mastery. But that still underrates his work. I think that what he did was unprecedented in the field of electronic music and in the realm of art in general. Burial creates narratives about memory, loss, transcendence & love woven from countless forms of media, culture, and environment. The experience of a Burial track is an emotional dive into the postmodern sound of the 21st century. Every digital transmission, every nostalgic beat becomes something personal: alarms on the street punctuate feeling states, fragmented vocal echoes reflect inner dialogues. This principally anonymous non-musician from London changed what recording artists can be, and I still think that few have come close.

Before he wrote novels in tracks on 2013’s “Rival Dealer”, before the anthemic stories of “Untrue”, there was the poem “Forgive” on his debut album. In my opinion it’s a perfect example of Burial’s singular sensitivity – creating an entire world from just a couple seconds of spliced audio. I never knew where the sounds were from, or what they’re supposed to be (though I may have read that one of the samples is from Brian Eno), and I still don’t know what the words are saying. I don’t think such work should be rationally or technically disseminated. To me this plays beyond words, like feelings clenching one’s throat, an endless thread of time & emotion unraveling.

I started really getting into alternative and electronic music around the time I was 15, when I moved from my hometown. The music of Burial had already been around, but for me discovering it was something otherworldly. At the same time, I immediately felt that it was something true to me, like it spoke about something that I was living through. I would be listening to the S/T and Untrue on loop, just walking around this new city that I knew nothing about, mostly isolated and terrified, with only these digital airwaves in my ears that seemed to know something real about me. I remember clearly observing at that time that this was music that spoke so much without words, something that I wanted to create.

“Forgive” wasn’t playing on repeat, it was for moments, sometimes years in between. I don’t remember most of them, but I can picture certain days, places, periods of time, series of events, people. The feeling doesn’t go away. It brings up something that was just a speck of dust in my memory, and it whirls into a hurricane. Sometimes I don’t even know what it is, the song just pulls it out. For me it’s not a song to put in a playlist, more like something sacred. There’s a video still online from 16 years ago where this track plays for a murmuration of birds across a clouded highway, it still really moves me.

Teatre – All Constellations Weaving Into One is out now on Amulet of Tears

https://amuletoftears.bandcamp.com/album/all-constellations-weaving-into-one

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Music

Burial – Comafields

A new Burial record is an increasingly rare thing: his new EP Comafields / Imaginary Festival is his first original material for over a year, following a split release with Kode 9. Comafields opens with a sample of Russell Crowe as Noah from Darren Aronofsky intensely odd 2014 movie (sure) and then meanders through all the Burial tropes: vinyl crackle, celestial rave, abrupt tonal and rhythmic shifts, ethereal, whispered vocals, before seemingly sampling himself with the final shuffling percussive flourish. And… it’s great!

https://burial.bandcamp.com/album/comafields-imaginary-festival

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Music

Burial – Come Down To Us (10 year anniversary)

Described on its release by FACT as “Christmas story about love, confusion and sexuality, and the best thing he’s made since Untrue“, Burial’s Rival Dealer EP came out 10 years ago, and includes what has become arguably the defining mid-period Burial track Come Down To Us – a 13 minute epic that starts and ends with crackly static (obviously) and tackles themes of identification and loss via a speech from transgender filmmaker Lana Wachowski, soaring melodies and what can only be described as Christmas bells. A decade later it remains both provocatively divisive and inescapably brilliant.

https://burial.bandcamp.com/track/come-down-to-us

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Music

Burial – Shadow Paradise

New year, new Burial, and what better way to fully embrace the January bleakness than with his amorphous, ambient-leaning Antidawn EP, which acts as both protective cloak and insidious amplifier of the cold, hash reality of the world across five expansive, spectral tracks. Burial’s work has become increasingly loose over the last decade, formal structures all but abandoned for longform sketches as various motifs are explored and then abruptly cut off as others emerge from the static-ridden gloom. Shadow Paradis stands out for me, as its final moment are among the most beautiful he’s ever conjured, and that’s saying something.

https://burial.bandcamp.com

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Music

Burial – Space Cadet

Like a lot of people, my entry point into Burial was 2007’s Untrue, which means I completely missed his remix of Blackdown’s Crackle Blues. According to Boomkat – who tend to be a pretty good authority on this kind of thing – that was a mistake, as it remains one of his tightest productions to date. Now, 15 years later, Burial and Blackdown reunite on Shock Power of Love EP which landed today on Keysound pretty much out of nowhere, which seems to be Burial’s current MO.

Space Cadet includes many of the later-era Burial staples – extended running time, triumphant, almost trancy chords – as well as plenty that have been with him his entire career (hello plaintive vocals and atmospheric crackles), but pushes the euphoric envelope further than perhaps ever before, with the warped call of “take me higher” echoed by a full on gospel choir. I guess we’ve come to expect this kind of relentless brilliance from Burial by now, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.

https://burial.bandcamp.com