Rabit

Eric C. Burton, performing as Rabit from Houston, shapes demanding and raw sonic textures that blend grime, post-industrial production techniques, and the chopped-and-screwed rap style native to his city. Early in the 2010s a sequence of EPs drew notice for his angular reinterpretation of U.K. grime, yet the fierce and aggressive album Communion (2015) fully integrated those strands. He subsequently moved toward greater abstraction with releases such as Life After Death (2018) along with multiple screw-style mixtapes. Partnerships have included Björk, Dedekind Cut, Chino Amobi, and additional artists, while he directs the experimental imprint Halcyon Veil.

His recorded output began in 2012 with the EP Terminator, which merged juke rhythms and grime and appeared on Austin’s #FEELINGS label featuring a Traxman remix of the title cut. International ties strengthened with the 2013 EP Sun Showers issued by Japan’s Diskotopia and a series of 2013-2014 singles, one of them a split with Logos, that emerged on Dublin’s Glacial Sound. In 2015 he aligned with the Tri Angle label for the EP Baptizm. That same year he established Halcyon Veil and issued the full-length Communion, rendering the gender and political themes of prior material more overt. Two limited self-released projects, Supreme and Excommunicate, surfaced in 2016 together with joint efforts alongside Dedekind Cut and Chino Amobi. The following year brought Les Fleurs du Mal, a clear shift away from his earlier beat-driven approach, plus co-production of “Losss” from Björk’s Grammy-nominated album Utopia. Rabit returned in 2018 with the album Life After Death and the EP Toe in the Bardo Pond, in addition to the screw mixtapes Cry Alone Die Alone and Bricks in a Drought that paid direct homage to DJ Screw’s innovations. A third such mixtape, The Dope Show, arrived in 2019.