More than a year after its release, one of the mysteries from Burial's acclaimed 2013 EP Rival Dealer has been solved: Fans and curious listeners wanted to find out who was the female voice commenting on the galaxy during the sprawling final track "Come Down To Us." Yeah I Got did the research that traced the quotes back to NASA scientist Melissa Dawson Higgins and interviewed her accordingly.
"I had actually not known about the tracks until I received an email from a Burial fan in Denmark informing me about the songs and asking if it was me in the tracks," she told the site. "Anyway, once I had found out about the song, I dug around a little and gave it a listen. It was certainly not an unpleasant discovery, but more a perplexing discovery."
What an odd news story...one that results in everybody feeling okay and the sample source not feeling the need to sue the performer. Another problem Higgins notably didn't have: The stretch where Burial cut up her previous interview to make it sound as if she were claiming she'd seen something "come down to us"...a UFO or otherwise. "After I listened to it a couple of times, it became a little funny."
How Burial came to find Higgins' vocals is beyond us, or anyone it seems, aside from the performer himself. The clip seems to be exclusively on YouTube, uploaded by NASA and never featured in any other media. Somehow the producer must have stumbled upon it searching for a solid sample.
Rival Dealer dropped during December of 2013 and quickly became one of the most acclaimed electronic releases of the year, meriting high marks from NME, Pitchfork and Resident Advisor among others.
Check out the actual song below:
