The music Ben Frost is about contrast; influenced as much by Classical Minimalism as by Punk Rock and Metal, Frost’s throbbing guitar-based textures emerge from nothing and slowly coalesce into huge, forbidding forms that often eschew conventional structures in favour of the inevitable unfoldings of vast mechanical systems.
The massive scale of Frost’s music often projects a sense of remoteness and isolation and yet he remains in demand as an artistic collaborator, having performed and worked with/for artists as diverse and acclaimed as Björk, Stars Like Fleas, Tim Hecker, Amiina, Christian Fennesz, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Wildbirds & Peacedrums and Bora Yoon, and with celebrated Bedroom Community labelmates Sam Amidon (Appalachian folksinger), Nico Muhly (classical composer), and longtime collaborator Valgeir Sigurðsson (electronic composer/producer) with whom Frost shares Sigurðsson’s recording facility Greenhouse Studios in Reykjavík.
Underlying Frost’s often noisy, defiant aesthetic is a quiet and welcoming humanity, and a subtle sense of emotional drama which has recently bought him to the attention of the film world, where in 2008, utilizing the Icelandic string quartet Amiina, Frost composed the tender but ominous score for the forthcoming True-Crime feature film In Her Skin, starring Sam Neill and Guy Pearce; a cinematic sensibility also pervades his current Lp, By The Throat, whose darkly surreal sound-world owes as much to David Lynch as it does to David Lang.
Ben Frost plays Whelan’s, Dublin on November 30th, 8pm. Tickets €16 on sale now!
