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The mysterious voice sampled on Burial's 2014 EP, Rival Dealer, has been identified as NASA scientist Melissa Dawson Higgins - who had no idea that her voice had been used by the producer.
As Pitchfork reports, Burial threaded vocal samples throughout his EP, the most striking of which was a woman's voice that spoke about space, astronomy and outer space.
The voice has now been identified as belonging to NASA sceintist Melissa Dawson Higgins. Speaking to Yeah I Got, Higgins said, "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. Once I told him that it was me, he said that he had a sudden urge to tell me and that he found my voice 'incredibly fascinating and beautiful.'"
She added, "Perhaps I should be grateful that [Burial] made my voice sound better! 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."
Speaking of 'Come Down To Us', in which Burial edits her speech to make it sound like she'd seen something "come down to us" from space, Higgins said, "It was quite strange to have my words shifted around to make it sound like I said '…come down to us.' After I listened to it a couple of times, it became a little funny. Especially since you could tell that several pieces of my interview were spliced together to make it sound like I said that."
Listen to 'Come Down To Us' below
Watch the original interview from which Burial took the vocal samples below
Burial's EP, Rival Dealer, was released last year.
