For the second year in a row, electronic musician Burial has a new EP coming out just before the end of the year, and now you can stream it in full, via Hyperdub Records, below.
For longtime fans, title track “Rival Dealer” will be the most familiar of the three songs, with its atmospherics and ghostly vocals, chopped up and layered over shuffled beats. (Perhaps it’s appropriate that Burial put out these releases in December: They’re perfect for walking the streets on cold winter nights.)
“Hiders” and “Come Down to Us” come as more of a surprise. With their steady chord progressions and ’80s big drum sound, they’re among the poppiest tracks Burial has released—to the extent poppy is a term you can use with Burial. And they’re among the most upbeat. “Hiders” starts with the sound of rain, but its quickly pushed away by a joyous voice singing “the sunlight has come.”
The 13-minute “Come Down to Us,” similarly, begins with a voice stopping a stranger for help because she’s lost, but soon it seems she’s been found: Around seven or eight minutes in, an androgynous voice comes in singing more conventional lyrics like “my angel,” “there’s no one like you,” and “you are not alone.”
Rival Dealer is out in physical release Dec. 16, or you can buy it now in digital release from Hyperdub.
