BEN FROST - A U R O R A - OUT NOW - CHECK IT OUT HERE....
Ben Frost has unveiled a new track, ‘Nolan’, and spoken about how his experiences in the Eastern DR Congo influenced his new album A U R O R A:
“Under the threatening gaze of the very active Mount Nyiragongo Volcano, Eastern Congo exists in a constant flux of destruction and re-creation: an Ouroboros. A sonic arms race where distortion, and visceral power are not affectations of choice, or fashion, but byproducts of raw necessity- creating a sprawling composition of truly operatic proportions, barely held together, in unnerving beauty and unflinching horror, with no beginning and no end.” – Ben Frost (speaking of the environment in which A U R O R A was conceived)
Performed by Ben Frost with Greg Fox, Shahzad Ismaily and Thor Harris and largely written in Eastern DR Congo, A U R O R A aims directly, through its monolithic construction, at blinding luminescent alchemy; not with benign heavenly beauty but through decimating magnetic force.
Starved of all the adornments of its predecessor; wholly absent of guitar, of piano, of string instruments and natural wooden intimacy, A U R O R A offers a defiant new world of fiercely synthetic shapes and galactic interference, pummeling skins and pure metals.
A U R O R A, Frost's fifth studio album, was released on 26 May on CD, vinyl and download, with a limited edition yellow vinyl also available.
Watch the first two in a triptych of films created by Trevor Tweeten and Richard Mosse here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ethermachines.
BEN FROST :: L I V E
12 June - Sonar Festival, Barcelona, SPAIN
13 June – La Machine du Moulin Rouge, Paris, FRANCE
11 July - ATP Festival, ICELAND
BEN FROST :: B I O G R A P H Y
Born in 1980 in Melbourne, Australia, Frost relocated to Reykjavík Iceland in 2005 and working together with close friends Valgeir Sigurðsson and Nico Muhly, formed the Bedroom Community record label/collective.
His albums, including Steel Wound (2003), Theory of Machines (2007) and BY THE THROAT (2009) fuse intensely structured sound art with militant post-classical electronic music, shape-shifting physical power with immersive melody, concentrated minimalism with fierce, rupturing dark metal.
In 2010 he was chosen by Brian Eno as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé program for a year of collaboration, one of the outcomes of which was Sólaris; a re-scoring of the Tarkovsky classic for Poland’s Sinfonietta Cracovia. The pair continue to work together on a range of projects.
Frost regularly collaborates with other musicians and artists; in the production of albums such as Tim Hecker’s Ravedeath 1972 and Virgins, SWANS The Seer, Colin Stetson’s New History Warfare and on various Bedroom Community releases. On the stage Frost has produced scores for Choreographers including Wayne McGregor/Random Dance, Akram Khan, Gideon Obarzanek/Chunky Move, and German Director Falk Richter. In film he composed the score for the Palme d’Or nominated Sleeping Beauty by Julia Leigh, and Djúpið by Icelandic Director Baltasar Kormákur (with Daníel Bjarnason). And in the visual arts, where, with artist Richard Mosse, Frost travelled deep beyond the frontlines of war-torn Eastern Congo to produce The Enclave; a multi-channel video and sound installation that premiered at the Venice Biennale in 2013.
2013 also marked his debut as a director with the première of Frost’s first Opera, based on Iain Bank´s infamous 1984 novel The Wasp Factory.
These various collaborations and alliances underline Frost’s continuing fascination with finding ways of juxtaposing music, rhythm, technology, the body, performance, text, art -beauty and violence- combining and coalescing the roles and procedures of various artistic disciplines in one place.
Listen to ‘Venter’ (Best New Track, Pitchfork) here:
A U R O R A :: T R A C K L I S T I N G
01 Flex,
02 Nolan
03 The Teeth Behind Kisses
of Light
04 Secant
05 Diphenyl Oxalate
06 Venter
of the sun
07 No Sorrowing
08 Sola Fide
09 A Single Point of Blinding Light
SOCIAL MEDIA