Bleep

Burial returns to Hyperdub for a surprise two tracker of ghost hardware urban ambience and Metal Gear Solid garage. Here we find our hero returning to the rain-soaked South London boroughs from which his one-of-a-kind sound first came to fruition. Subtemple / Beachfires is sure to be William Bevan's most widely praised recording since we all fell under the angelic garage spell of Untrue, a decade ago.

On the A-Side, Subtemple deploys the inner workings of the Keysound classic 'Temple Sleeper', yet where that track spun off into a trance-inducing hardcore number, Subtemple steps deeper into the mix and comes through the other side of the dawn with echoes of the eternal classic 'Pirates' resonating through the spectral gloom, perfectly topped off with a filtered snatch of an old R&B white label dripping through the ceiling from the flat above.

On the B, Beachfires sets its way down a path of blurred memories from the rave a decade before, a howling wind blows out the last flick of the night's clipper while a rumbling bassline builds with momentum like the last night tube rumbling to a stop while you try and draw the last toke before descending down into the darkness. The end result is possibly the most vivid auto counterpoint to Burial's semi-imagined nighttime world yet.

Say what you like, but honestly, we don't really need to spell out just how good this one is.