Artist Burial reveals identity

Mercury Prize nominee Burial has revealed his identity after keeping it a secret for several years.

On his MySpace blog, the dubstep musician told fans: "My name's Will Bevan, I'm from south London."

He added: "I wanted to be unknown because I just want it to be all about the tunes."

His announcement followed rumours in a newspaper that Burial might be a pseudonym for dance DJs Fatboy Slim or Aphex Twin.

Bevan has been known as Burial since his eponymous debut album was released in 2006 to critical acclaim.

He has consistently refused to be photographed and has rarely granted interviews or played gigs.

When his second album, Untrue, was nominated for the Mercury Prize two weeks ago, pressure grew on the artist to reveal his identity.

'Head down'

The Sun newspaper appeared determined to "out" him with a plea to readers to help "dig up the real Burial".

On social-networking site MySpace, Bevan wrote: "I'm a low-key person and I just want to make some tunes, nothing else.

"Over the last year the unknown thing became an issue so I'm not into it any more," he added.

As to what he was doing now, Bevan said: "I'm keeping my head down and just going to finish my next album.

"There's going to be a 12" maybe in the next few weeks too, with four tunes. Hope u like it."

The winner of this year's Mercury Prize will be announced at a ceremony in September.

Previous winners include PJ Harvey, Arctic Monkeys and Dizzee Rascal.