Dubstep man-of-the-moment Burial has famously kept his identity secret since his first white label 12″s in an attempt to keep the attention on his music. With his nomination for the Mercury Prize, the focus has been unrelenting of late and Burial has apparently decided enough is enough, no doubt helped by churlish attempts at finding out who he is such as The Sun’ ’unmask Burial’ campaign last week. How delightfully tabloid of them.

Nonetheless, Burial, the current favourite to win the Mercury Prize with his superb LP Untrue, has revealed his long-hidden identity via his MySpace. As previously suggested by The Independent, Burial is known as William Bevan to his Mum and friends. Leaving the following message on his MySpace, Dubstep artist Bevan destroys myths that he might have been Norman Cook, Aphex Twin or laughably, Banksy:

hi

for a while theres been some talk about who i am , but its not a big deal i wanted to be unknown because i just want it to be all about the tunes. over the last year the unknown thing become an issue so im not into it any more. im a lowkey person and i just want to make some tunes, nothing else. my names will bevan, im from south london, im keeping my head down and just going to finish my next album, theres going to be a 12″ maybe in the next few weeks too with 4 tunes. hope u like it, i’ll try put a tune up later

sorry for any rubbish tunes i made in the past, ill make up for it

a big big thank you to anyone who ever supported me, liked my tunes or sent me messages, it means the world to me

big up everyone, take care, will (burial)

Even being so kind as to post a picture, (which does have an element of similarity to the drawn figure on the LP’s sleeve) the mention of an approaching 12” is the most interesting part of the post, but in an apparently devised twist, googling William Bevan links nicely to Funeral company williambevan.co.uk. Literally. Funeral Directors. Burial. Geddit?

Burial’s superb Untrue is out now and currently 4.4 favourite with BetFair.com to win the 2008 Mercury Prize.