Artist: Ben Frost
Title: A U R O R A
Genre: Experimental/ Ambient/ Instrumental
Release Date: 23rd May 2014
Label: Mute/GOODTOGO
Album Review
Beardy Ben Frost is an Australian who now lives in Iceland, which is rather like a polar bear settling down in Dubai you would think. Perhaps it's partly how the electronic experimentalist manages the strange, detached between-continents style of his compositions. He's certainly a busy chap, with a number of albums to his name as well as collaborations with contemporary dance companies and a smattering of film scores under his belt. ‘A U R O R A’ is his latest offering, and it's rather good.
Like any instrumental album, this is best listened to as a whole and with plenty of time to let it unfold and sink in. Harsh and spooky 'Flex' starts things off, an unforgiving and eerie series of loops and sounds. It's wonderfully creepy and paves the way for the bells and atonal noisescapes of 'Nolan'. If SWANS and CRYSTAL CASTLES were rehearsing in adjacent studios, this might be what you'd hear in the middle. It's hard to listen to, most definitely, but it's intelligent and purposeful and no mere accident. It's also up there in the spooky stakes, and suggests Mr Frost has a weirdly inventive dream-life. The bells are still chiming somewhere in the distance on 'The Teeth Behind Kisses', an excellent title by the way, and 'Secant' would soundtrack any decent modern horror flick, it's whip-crack beat somehow sounding organic and mechanical at the same time. When it breaks down half way through it allows a bit of breathing space into the claustrophobia. But not for long, as everything crashes back in, twice as loud and abrasive, the beat stuttering and barely holding it together. It's a magnificent piece of music.
A collage of percussion underpins 'Venter' and it too grows in stature with a melancholy synth soaring above the APHEX TWIN rush and whoosh beneath. Things calm down on 'No Sorrowing' which is surely influenced by the strange landscapes and wildly varying weather patterns of Iceland. Indeed 'Solar Fide' could be the perfect companion to watching either the northern lights at their most spectacular, or the slow, relentless grind and glide of a vast glacier, beautiful and destructive all at once. And 'A Single Point Of Blinding Light', the end of this bizarre and disturbing journey, could very well be what you hear in a near death experience, hurtling towards the titular blinding light but hoping desperately not to have to reach it. There are times when 'A U R O R A' could have ventured off into indulgence and pointless ambient noodling, but it never does. Each piece of music is short and to the point, and as a whole, this album flows dramatically towards the end, an aggressive, violent but strangely beautiful symphony, composed in a landscape where extremes are the norm, and order reigns over the apparent chaos.
Tracklist
01. Flex
02. Nolan
03. The Teeth Behind The Kisses
04. Secant
05. Diphenyl Oxalate
06. Venter
07. No Sorrowing
08. Solar Fide
09. A Single Point Of Blinding Light
Line-up
Ben Frost
Website
http://ethermachines.com/ / https://www.facebook.com/theghostofbenfrost
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 8
Sound: 8
Total: 8 / 10
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