Rating: NNNN
Australian electronic music composer Ben Frost has been based in Iceland since 2005, but his fifth solo album was mostly written in the war-torn Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo while collaborating on a video installation with photographer Richard Mosse. Influenced by both the horrors of war and the looming threat of a nearby active volcano, A U R O R A is every bit as terrifying and brutal as those inspirations suggest, but also oddly hypnotic and contemplative.
If you’re not already familiar with Frost’s work, you can get a good idea of his approach from his previous collaborations: he’s worked with noise pioneers Swans, ambient grandfather Brian Eno and Montreal-based experimentalists Tim Hecker and Colin Stetson.
This time around, he’s traded the treated guitars and pianos of his earlier work for percussion and synthesizers, combining classical minimalism with the crushing sensory overload of doom: eerie drones, distorted walls of noise, layers of echoing drums and the occasional glimpse of a haunting melody.
Top track: Nolan
Ben Frost plays the Garrison Friday (October 24).
