Ben Frost
Theory of Machines

LA RECENSIONE

In the fading light of September, I prefer the yellowish, sickly glow of streetlamps.

It is important not to scratch the scabs before the abrasion has healed: blood and burning, burning and blood.

And raw flesh.

Four long suites in continuous evolution and involution. Four portions of thin skin obsessively teased by the nails of psychedelic drones, electronic pointillism, and techno syncopations.

Resentment that resurfaces, discomfort that reemerges, anger that mounts.

And reopened wounds.

And then industrial lacerations distort the psychedelic drones, purulent glitch smear the electronic pointillism, burning hardcore rages infiltrate the beat of techno syncopations.

A record played on the balance - which seems precarious - of an apparent calm/stillness that already carries within itself (with that threatening and dark sound) the seeds of future dissonances/distortions that constantly change the game.

And Ben Frost does not stop here.

The skin sometimes seems to finally compact in glimpses of elegant chamber music sutured by the soft lines of muffled strings that flow into the melancholic realization of the final adagio.

My skin in the light of the streetlamp has something unreal, metaphysical, strange.

And there are scars.