‘Antidawn’ reduces Burial’s music to just the vapours. The record explores an interzone between dislocated, patchwork songwriting and eerie, open-world game-space ambience. In the resulting no man’s land, lyrics take precedence over song, lonely phrases colour the haze, a stark and fragmented structure makes time slow down.‘Antidawn’ seems to tell a story of a wintertime city, and something beckoning you to follow it into the night. The result is both comforting and disturbing, producing a quiet and uncanny glow against the cold. Sometimes, as it enters 'a bad place', it takes your breath away. And time just stops.

Burial has gone longform on Antidawn - giving us his longest release since Untrue in 2007 - and the songs on the EP span from six to eight minutes. Dub beats of Burial’s past have been replaced by haunted pulses of silence, crackling vinyl and the ambience of falling rain. The EP’s gloom seems apt during a pandemic; particularly on the title track, samples of coughing and phrases like ‘I’m in a bad place’ create an atmosphere of dislocation and despair that have become all too familiar for many recently. FFO: Andy Stott, Clark, Thom Yorke, Skee Mask.

By Martha