Bury Me Standing songs are musically challenging, with complex metric structures based on time signature changes, mixed meters, and metric superimposition. Modal improvisational passages follow complex functional harmonic structures, only to give way to powerful distorted unisons and back again to delicate singable melodies, often informed by traditional Balkan and Gypsy folksong.

In a time when musical genres, styles, and traditions are merging in unprecedented ways, Bury Me Standing exemplifies this evolution completely. The band was cofounded by a Bulgarian marimbist who grew up listening to American hard rock and an American drummer who later became enamored with Balkan folk music. The band includes two vocalists: Berklee alumna and current NEC contemporary improvisation grad student Burcu Guleç, whose unearthly voice draws from her own soulful Turkish vocal traditions, and Rebecca Kopycinski, a Vermont native who has mastered the art of electronic loops and digital effects on her already experimental, sirenlike vocals. The core personnel is rounded out by an American bassist influenced by free jazz, who plays electric and acoustic basses, and the Moroccan sintir.