British electronic legends, The Orb, and dubstep pioneer, Burial, are set to go head to head in a visceral battle to determine finally, once and for all, who is the most ambient. In what has been dubbed, “The Battle of the Beige” by members of the press, the masters of their craft will be pitted against each other in the most extremely mild battle the world has ever seen.
Some critics have claimed that the entire event is merely a publicity stunt to draw attention to the upcoming joint venture by both Burial and the Orb, a side project entitled ‘Milieu‘ whose first single, “Mild Thing,” is set to be released next month.
Both acts have denied the accusation that it’s a PR stunt with famously shy Burial claiming that he is only taking part because of “bored lethargy” and insisting that his ideal way of releasing music would be to “leave an unmarked CD on a park bench in the hope that people will find it and play it” but so far that approach has failed “because mostly people just use the reflective underside as a makeshift mirror or they don’t even notice the CD when they sit down and wind up getting shards of complex post-dubstep in their asscheeks.”
The customary pre-fight weigh-in took place last night and the air was made foul with the stench of trash talk. It was Burial who began the fracas by gently questioning whether The Orb can consider themselves more ambient when their songs are littered with catchy hooks. He asked Orb member Alex Paterson, “How can you guys claim to be ambient when you’ve got more hooks than double hook-handed, Islamic cleric, Abu Hamza. You’re basically a band of mildly threatening, Disney pirate captains.”
However, Mr. Paterson, pictured soundly beating Lee Scratch Perry in a game of ‘Who Can Stand On A Higher Log?’ was quick to retort to Burial, making the claim that Burial’s “tracks have more definitions than your average dictionary. You think ‘pads’ are a feminine hygiene product.” It was at this point that security were forced to get the attention of the bickering duo by gently coughing before languidly insisting on no more name calling to take place in case anyone “spilled their tea or choked on a biscuit.”
With calm having no need to be restored, a short press conference was held, in which the Orb issued the following statement, “We’re going to ambient your face off Burial. You’ll be palpitating from the sheer extremity of the ambiance. I hope you can fly because you’ll be floating on a zephyr composed of pure sound.”
Burial however took a different approach in his reply, stating, “I’m going to be ambient to the point of being offensive. I’ll be pasting the place with aural wallpaper. The crowd will be mesmerized by my droning electronic bliss. I’m going to have to bring some hammocks with me because these people are about to be gently lulled to sleep.”
It was at this point that the organisers realised that there was no appropriate scale with which to measure ambiance which resulted in a divide amongst the coordinators between those who felt the number of the crowd cheering would act as indication and those who thought that the number of the crowd sleeping would be a more accurate barometer.
With no clear winner between the two groups and a kind of collective nonchalance settling in the organisers then decided that due to the idiosyncrasies inherent in the event it would have to be postponed until a clearer objective could be determined. In a statement issued today, the team behind the battle has said, “It’s somewhat appropriate that a contest to see who is the most ambient has to be postponed due to a lack of clear goals.”
