Having been a little quiet in the mid-2010s, the last few years have been pretty busy for Burial. There’s been a pretty steady stream of singles and EPs from William Bevan, but besides the Tunes 2011-2019 collection—which pulled together loosies from that era—we’ve had to have a concrete album proper since 2007’s era-shifting Untrue.
Technically speaking, we still haven’t, but he has just released one of his most substantial releases for a while, the Antidawn EP, clocking in at 43 minutes across just five tracks.
With Burial, it really is a case of expect the unexpected—and that’s never been more true than on Antidawn. Almost entirely beatless, the presser describes it as “[reducing] Burial’s music to just vapours”, adding that it “explores an intervene between dislocated, patchwork songwriting and eerie, open-world, game space ambience.”
It’s something of a new direction for Burial, delving much deeper into his ambient influences, but there are still echoes of some of his past productions. The post-rave mistiness that added colour and texture to those releases is now the dominant force, creating something much more abstract and harder to pin down.
Immerse yourself in Antidawn below.
