A Closer Listen

The Centre Cannot Hold arrives two months and a day after the EP Threshold of Faith, and stems from sessions Ben Frost recorded with Steve Albini.  Now we learn that the EP contains alternate versions and remixes of songs from the main album along with exclusives and one track ~ highlight “Threshold of Faith” ~ identical on each.  The tactic is reminiscent of the early releases by Nine Inch Nails, another maverick of his time.  It also opens discussion about “definitive” versions.  While we prefer the original “Threshold of Faith”, the EP’s shorter, nearly acoustic version (“Your Own Blood”) opens a window into the creative process.  The same principle holds true on “All That You Love Will Be Eviscerated” (are we sure this isn’t NIN?), whose length on the album proper equals that of the two prior versions combined.  After encountering a chime-laden “Swing Version” and a wildly percussive Lotic remix, fans can finally hear what these versions were commenting on.  The chimes remain, although the beats no longer leap from the speakers.  A host of drones stands in their place, supported by dark bass, with a beautiful ambient retreat in the center, which of course cannot hold.  This has always been the way of Frost’s music, although it’s never been more apparent.  Sonic anarchy seems win every battle, purposely reflecting a world on the brink of collapse.

The titles, many inspired by Greek mythology, hint of hubris.  If one needs the message to be any more obvious, there’s “Heathcare” and the 13-second “A Single Hellfire Missile Costs $100,000”.  The mood is unrelentingly bleak.  Even the chimes can’t stand against the banks of bleary electronics, which only occasionally break into beats.  Whenever they do (as in the second half of “Ionia”), they offer a hint of form, a hitching post that turns out to be rotted at its base.  Very little humanity is on display here, a commentary on the current condition.

The use of the color blue is worth note.  Half of the cover is blue; the lead video is drenched in blue; the closing piece is “Entropy in Blue”.  While the traditional color associations are with calm (positive) and depression (negative), the closing track is neither, especially as extra beats begin to drop.  At first, one thinks that Frost is attempting to create a new symbolism.  But then, at the very end, a few seconds of surf, cut off mid-crash: the only warm sound on the album, snatched away.  But at least we remember the calm sea still exists, somewhere, if only we can remember how to get there.  (Richard Allen)

Available here

The Quietus

Ben Frost has cast a mercurial shadow over the electronic landscape for the better part of a decade, ever since pulling up stumps from his native Australia and laying roots in the alien terrain of Iceland. Not that Frost has stuck exclusively to Iceland, his sonic wanderings taking him from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the USS Theodore Roosevelt, an American warship capable of wiping out populations, in his search for the restless energy that lies in outer, uncharted regions of sound. Whether he is carving intense salubrious slabs of industrial-grade feedback and layered noise or folding nebulous white noise in over each other to present an atmosphere of wanton avarice, Frost has been surprisingly lithe in his transgressions on incremental shifts of uncompromising noise.

Yet The Centre Cannot Hold is another tangential watermark as it was written and recorded entirely at Chicago’s Electrical Audio, home to irascible art noise scion Steve Albini. I don’t want to focus on Albini’s involvement too much – Frost’s oeuvre, from By The Throat to the more immersive (yet similarly dense) A U R O R A and this year’s Threshold of Faith EP, is a force unto itself, irrespective of people’s meddling and intervention. But much is said about Albini’s influence in the studio – he himself is a purveyor of acerbic gnashing of teeth and abrasive squalls, nevertheless his sonic filtering and manipulations normally scour like-minded guitar-thrashing acolytes’ work into rasping, growling form. On these ten tracks, however, this influence isn’t so much a bulldozer force than a shadow, a colouring, a scored marker into the side of an inimitable, Martian mountainside on a horizon unconquerable. For The Centre Cannot Hold is an exercise in wrestling the beast of electronic fury and ill omen, allowing for mistakes and missteps to become fibrous, organic maelstroms conjured and released by an alchemical architect revelling in getting lost and losing control, as opposed to living in a world where control is drifting further away from us.

There is something of kindred spirit Lawrence English’s excellent Cruel Optimism. Everything starts in an electrified bathysphere with ‘Threshold Of Faith’ – a few moments of silence (Albini’s muttered ‘You’re rolling’ in this abyss a talismanic opening of the floodgates) before hissing, oscillating white noise snakes out like a live wire, the beating heart under which artificial breath and an EKG beats inexorably on. As the song oozes forth, the noise becomes firmer, more febrile, more tactile – a sonic monster taking its first synthetic breath, the synth undercurrent lending an ethereal hope to the abstract abrasion.

There are moments where Frost is clearly the architect and noise tamer, orchestrating becalmed undulations that offer repose, often of lament rather than of hope. The strangely titled ‘Meg Ryan Eyez’ is a pensive spiral into inactivity, where being lost and weightless is purposeful, its preoccupied tenors and whispers an alleviating respite. The sorrowful, exposed whimsy of ‘Healthcare’ is an ethereal elegy for our future, almost desolate in its worn despair.

Yet there are just as many moments when Frost lets his muse fuse with unadorned, unadulterated noise, creating arpeggios of tension that ratchet up steadily, the life raft tipping over, all feeling of equilibrium and control ripping away from the listener and composer both. ‘Trauma Theory’ is a stuttering stop-motion whitewash, each ratcheted arpeggio of intensity underscored by a beat of stillness that causes the blood to pound. ‘Eurydice’s Heel’ is an expulsion, a blast of synth white heat, anarchic trumpet peals from a Heaven hell-bent on wiping the slate clean.

Then there are those moments that straddle the two extremes offering darkness and daylight, chaos and calm, fed through swelling waves, electrical storm at regular intervals with eyes of calm in their midst. ‘All That You Love Will Be Eviscerated’ is the aural equivalent of a world turned to ash, the empty and broken glide through dust-coated destruction evinced from John Hillcoat’s post-apocalyptic imagining of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road given more texture and more weighted dread. Closer ‘Entropy In Blue’ Sudden dips into near silence feels like a near-death experience, pulled underwater and into a vacuum, where memory starts to roll forth as hope fades, then the blast of abrasion rips forth and the painful memory of fighting for life begins all over again, before being washed ashore, the murmur of the waves underfoot a beguiling reminder that the wellspring of life is always held in the palm of nature’s indifferent impulses, tranquillity and composure just as suddenly resetting the plate.

The title of Frost’s immutable epic comes from a Yeats poem, ‘The Second Coming’, a poem of Revelation with a capital R, as the world loses its innocence and those who should inherit the world lack the temerity to claim it, while the arseholes and whores retain it with their unabashed passion and blind ambition. A depressive ode to the current state of the world we live in, Frost gives no easy answers, nor refuses to bludgeon us with irreversible abrasion. It’s a daunting listen yet one filled with frustration and anger, yet not without a dark humour – the thirteen second ‘A Single Hellfire Missile Costs $100,000’ a glistening gem of a track at extreme odds with its intent.

Share this article:

Drowned In Sound 80

Thus goes Irish poet W B Yeats’ 'The Second Coming', and it is where Ben Frost's latest album title has been lifted. Yeats composed the poem in the aftermath of the First World War and the Easter Rising and at the beginning of the Irish War of Independence, and Frost now refracts similar sentiments through his own musical lens and contemporary tumult. But The Centre Cannot Hold jettisons the last couplet as Frost can certainly claim conviction, and his record bears out passionate intensity in the extreme. Binary notions of best and worst have no place in relation to the extraordinary music on this record.

It’s difficult to write about an album like this in any traditional way. There are no choruses, no hooks, no overindulgent guitar solos. Half the time it’s a challenge to even identify how this noise has been generated. There is little that is familiar or comfortable, but it’s far from structureless. There’s a strong sense of a thematic thread throughout, even when it’s so often intangible. Frost is most commonly referred to as a noise artist, no doubt for want of any better way to describe the indescribable. Nevertheless, it does mark a second coming for him, as he ventures further from his illustrious back catalogue towards unknown fascinating territory.

He turned to the inimitable Steve Albini to record the album, which at first seems like a curious choice - for both of them. Albini famously tore a strip off electronic artist Powell after he sought permission to use a vocal sample of him introducing a track at a Big Black gig. And his own music, along with the records he is most famous for engineering, tend towards the harsher end of guitar-based music. Oh, and he records in analogue, which feels an odd match for the predominantly electronic music that Frost makes. But then to see these discrepancies as a mismatch would be to misunderstand both Frost and Albini’s intentions, and given the record Frost has made it feels like an obvious one. Whilst his music on the surface may not share a great deal with Albini’s own musical world, it does contain elements of the punk-rock ethos and its dissonance.

Three of the tracks on the record were released earlier in the year in slightly different form, and ’Threshold of Faith’ opens the record as it did the EP in an unnerving fashion. Beginning with a blistering crackle it goes on to discharge an electrical storm. Metallic sheets come in waves and spark off each other, only to be concluded with a sharp shot of air. ‘All That You Love Will Be Eviscerated’ featured twice on the EP remixed by Albini and Lotic. Albini’s was a surprisingly gentle affair that twinkles, whereas Lotic’s remix thrashes out a twisted borderline drum and bass rendition. On TCCH Frost’s sits somewhere between the two, and towards the end, a noise appears like rotating helicopter blades that fittingly recalls the beginning of Apocalypse Now. ‘Eurydice’s Heel’ is less soft than the EP version, and this sharper take has a faint building melody that shines through the distorted upper layers.

The insect-like ‘Trauma Theory’ crawls and scratches and feels akin to being aggravated by a swarm of bees. And ‘Iona’ is dramatic, pounding and warped, all of which makes the record sound brutish, but even within the most savage tracks there is a delicacy, and sensitivity of thought and feeling evedent even the most grueling moments. The meditative ‘Meg Ryan Eyes’ features what sounds like a low mournful choral hum, and what could be guitar - it’s hard to say. Equally, ‘Healthcare’ has an unsurprisingly elegiac tone, but a sweeping vibrato sound propels it forwards almost optimistically. The listener is also permitted a brief 13 seconds of light relief with the shimmering ‘A Single Hellfire Missile Costs $100,000.’ Whichever direction the tracks take this is music that is hard to ignore, it’s all-consuming.

Given that three of the tracks are already available, and they are probably still the best of this collection, it could make the release feel a little slight, but the album puts them in a fuller more fleshed out context. The prevailing harshness of the record renders it a soundtrack for apocalyptic times, and it’s challenging nature means that it’s often a difficult listen. If you’re looking for ease and comfort there’s a deluge of that available, but there are aren’t many records like The Centre Cannot Hold. Frost has achieved a thrillingly precarious balance whereby there is always the tiniest spark of light to glean amongst the relentless dirge.

Drowned In Sound 80

Thus goes Irish poet W B Yeats’ 'The Second Coming', and it is where Ben Frost's latest album title has been lifted. Yeats composed the poem in the aftermath of the First World War and the Easter Rising and at the beginning of the Irish War of Independence, and Frost now refracts similar sentiments through his own musical lens and contemporary tumult. But The Centre Cannot Hold jettisons the last couplet as Frost can certainly claim conviction, and his record bears out passionate intensity in the extreme. Binary notions of best and worst have no place in relation to the extraordinary music on this record.

It’s difficult to write about an album like this in any traditional way. There are no choruses, no hooks, no overindulgent guitar solos. Half the time it’s a challenge to even identify how this noise has been generated. There is little that is familiar or comfortable, but it’s far from structureless. There’s a strong sense of a thematic thread throughout, even when it’s so often intangible. Frost is most commonly referred to as a noise artist, no doubt for want of any better way to describe the indescribable. Nevertheless, it does mark a second coming for him, as he ventures further from his illustrious back catalogue towards unknown fascinating territory.

He turned to the inimitable Steve Albini to record the album, which at first seems like a curious choice - for both of them. Albini famously tore a strip off electronic artist Powell after he sought permission to use a vocal sample of him introducing a track at a Big Black gig. And his own music, along with the records he is most famous for engineering, tend towards the harsher end of guitar-based music. Oh, and he records in analogue, which feels an odd match for the predominantly electronic music that Frost makes. But then to see these discrepancies as a mismatch would be to misunderstand both Frost and Albini’s intentions, and given the record Frost has made it feels like an obvious one. Whilst his music on the surface may not share a great deal with Albini’s own musical world, it does contain elements of the punk-rock ethos and its dissonance.

Three of the tracks on the record were released earlier in the year in slightly different form, and ’Threshold of Faith’ opens the record as it did the EP in an unnerving fashion. Beginning with a blistering crackle it goes on to discharge an electrical storm. Metallic sheets come in waves and spark off each other, only to be concluded with a sharp shot of air. ‘All That You Love Will Be Eviscerated’ featured twice on the EP remixed by Albini and Lotic. Albini’s was a surprisingly gentle affair that twinkles, whereas Lotic’s remix thrashes out a twisted borderline drum and bass rendition. On TCCH Frost’s sits somewhere between the two, and towards the end, a noise appears like rotating helicopter blades that fittingly recalls the beginning of Apocalypse Now. ‘Eurydice’s Heel’ is less soft than the EP version, and this sharper take has a faint building melody that shines through the distorted upper layers.

The insect-like ‘Trauma Theory’ crawls and scratches and feels akin to being aggravated by a swarm of bees. And ‘Iona’ is dramatic, pounding and warped, all of which makes the record sound brutish, but even within the most savage tracks there is a delicacy, and sensitivity of thought and feeling evedent even the most grueling moments. The meditative ‘Meg Ryan Eyes’ features what sounds like a low mournful choral hum, and what could be guitar - it’s hard to say. Equally, ‘Healthcare’ has an unsurprisingly elegiac tone, but a sweeping vibrato sound propels it forwards almost optimistically. The listener is also permitted a brief 13 seconds of light relief with the shimmering ‘A Single Hellfire Missile Costs $100,000.’ Whichever direction the tracks take this is music that is hard to ignore, it’s all-consuming.

Given that three of the tracks are already available, and they are probably still the best of this collection, it could make the release feel a little slight, but the album puts them in a fuller more fleshed out context. The prevailing harshness of the record renders it a soundtrack for apocalyptic times, and it’s challenging nature means that it’s often a difficult listen. If you’re looking for ease and comfort there’s a deluge of that available, but there are aren’t many records like The Centre Cannot Hold. Frost has achieved a thrillingly precarious balance whereby there is always the tiniest spark of light to glean amongst the relentless dirge.

Pitchfork 78

Recording in Chicago with Steve Albini at the controls, Ben Frost unleashes volleys of brutalizing electronic sound as an allegory for the grim state of the world.

Tiny Mix Tapes 70

Ben Frost
The Centre Cannot Hold

[Mute; 2017]

Rating: 3.5/5