Antidawn

Burial

Admittedly, I have never heard Burial. I am aware that his name holds a great deal of weight in the electronic music world, and that many would consider his 2005 album Untrue to be essential listening. As things turned out though, I'm just now taking the dive into Burial's music with his Antidawn project. Initially, I was caught quite off-guard with the total absence of percussion, the disjointed inclusion of mysterious vocal samples, and how everything is shrouded in soft white noise which comes from hissing air, rainfall, or warm cracking vinyl. While I've listened to lots of ambient electronic works from puzzling artists such as Aphex Twin and Oneohtrix Point Never, this still presented a new experience for me. One I can describe as a ghostly séance in which spirits are communicating with me by piecing together found sounds from the radio, television, or by amplifying certain sounds in my environment. It is certainly not as serene an experience as Riceboy Sleeps for example, but as far as supernatural experiences go, Antidawn creates a space in which everyone feels at ease even when things are lost in translation.

I wish I had more to say about this project, but honestly, that pretty much sums it up. Perhaps the draw back to this project is that if you've heard the first six minutes of opener Strange Neighbourhood, you've essentially heard all of the album's forty-four minutes. Each track has the exact same aesthetic, just with different synth pad sounds, progressions, a different selection of vocal samples, and a different source of soft, cackling noise. Although, I did enjoy it. It brought me a new experience that I haven't heard before, and I suppose if I was ever in the mood to converse with some spirits and not feel in danger, then I guess I would throw this on to accomplish that.