Ben Frost
The Centre Cannot Hold

We left Ben Frost at the height of his aggressiveness, and perhaps potential, with A U R O R A, three years ago. An album that, if we were to brainstorm, we would all shout in unison heavy and then embrace tightly. Its ideal placement can be found in a component of audiomasochism that is a sinister and gloomy companion to our breakfasts, moments of intimacy, dinners with friends. Too much context in itself not to create context, or to integrate into any type of.
The relentless industrial hammer, the synths that clip straight like screws into the Creature's skull, the white noise not at all sweetened compared to the most extreme manifestations of noise music, made A U R O R A a compendium of how much pain electronics can generate, in a refined intersection between instrumental aggressive Nine Inch Nails, a more rhythmic Nurse With Wound, menacing tribalism, apocalyptic world music, in the sense of apocalyptic folk.

With these premises, I approach Ben Frost's new work with the curiosity of someone looking inside those machines that grind male chicks.
The slow digital pulses and that vague kraut sense, in the opening with The Threshold Of Faith, do not reassure; h o w e v e r the feeling you would have hearing its chime from the kitchen while being called "dinner's ready dear" would be that of finding undercooked pig liver on the table, with onions, and not your children's limbs chopped and arranged as if it sounded like a Secant from A U R O R A, a Metal On Skin from Black Marrow. Atrocious but edible, and socially acceptable.
To say in short that no; paradoxically no, especially considering the collaboration with Steve Albini, in some not entirely identifiable role, given the absence of tight snares and realistic guitars: there's no trace of extreme, no too much to succumb to and no drone to suffer for suffering, on The Centre Cannot Hold.
But it's still a good listen, and Ben Frost hasn’t become Four Tet: at most, he's become the latest Tim Hecker.
The soundscape that gives a tone to Ben Frost's ambient is on this record an artificially induced breathing, a sizzling electricity drone, besides the more classic reverb-laden string orchestration. With an exaggerated and plastic pedal style Oneohtrix Point Never, as if the P.I.L. drum kit had become that of Depeche Mode.

A Sharp Blow in Passing is essentially held up by an arpeggiator, a rhythmic deconstruction, minor strings. Good, but it’s ninety-ish in percentage of intellectual electronics. No matter the respirator, and the layering. The myth of layering is due to not understanding the sequencer: it will disappear one day, buried by simply effective, recognizable rhythmic and melodic solutions, and as such, exhibited.

It may also seem forced, to look for a correspondence between the symmetrical bichromia on the cover and a possible bipartite structure of the disc, and indeed it is. The fact is that. For example, a side A closing with the drone running out of breath of Eurydice's Heel would be the continuation, however composed, of a discourse that Frost has been pursuing for about three albums and a significant handful of EPs by now. Whereas a side B, opening with Meg Ryan Eyez, would be settling into the stylistic features that bring from Eno even to the latest Boards Of Canada. That way of creating ambient, essentially. Because Ionia even has the crescendo. And All That You Love Will Be Eviscerated could be an instrumental by Matt Elliott, feeling title á la Matt Elliott aside.

Speaking of titles: A Single Hellfire Missile Costs 100,000$ is one of the best GY!BE titles I’ve ever heard. I don’t think it’s intentional, and Ben Frost doesn’t seem like the most jovial person, but he has a bit of a sense of humor. He's an Australian living in Iceland. And then it’s a ten-second skit, so come on, the irony.

In short, not a beautiful album, but not bad either, and masterfully crafted: 73/100. Let’s hope we don’t lose him.