Antidawn is Burial’s return with a new EP, released on January 6th of 2022. The artist’s project is made of 5 tracks of length ranging between 6 and 11 minutes each.
In this project we can hear some of Burial’s signature sound: experimental electronic sounds and sample-based music. However, in his return, Burial takes a minimal approach to his composition and production. Generally, we can hear beautiful instrumentation, distorted sampled vocals, and continuous ambient sounds such as rain, cracks, birds, and abstract voices.
While listening to this EP, I expected a garage beat to drop at any point, but it never did. Burial plays with our expectations by teasing build ups at different points, and never fulfilling them into a resolution. This project dances between a hopeful and dark sound; and between waves of layered and atmospheric ambience and a thin, stripped-down production, that very occasionally bursts into a more aggressive sound.
Tracks have drastic harmonic and rhythmic changes within – almost like listening to a different song, or some sort of sonic pastiche. Whichever idea it takes, it doesn’t spend too much time on it, moving on onto the next one rather quickly and occasionally revisiting previous ones. It doesn’t bother with pleasing the ear, expanding the idea of ambiguity that never reaches a climax. This lack of structure makes it challenging to differentiate the tracks, where they start and where they end.
Antidawn is a project that takes its time to deliver and commits to breaking the listener’s expectations while building a calming, at times dark, sonic landscape. Burial arrives at a slightly different destination but applying the same approach we know him for – experimental, non-conforming, and always enigmatic.