RFI: tell me more abt Ben Frost and things that sound like him because I don't really have a frame reference for this new agey ambient noisey stuff

Haven't read it yet, but yeah, he seems to take himself very seriously, for better or worse.

Well, and there really isn't anything objectionable about his music but it's not like he's the second coming of Penderecki.

or that there's aren't already thousands of people making this sort of music.

Are there thousands of other people doing what he's doing? IMO he's doing something that's a lot darker and more violent and primal than folks like Tim Hecker or whoever.

i think its more that hes ploughing a particular narrow venn intersection that isn't covered yet, i do care what he has to say, just disappointed its so dumb

what's dumb about it?

i haven't heard any of his music. the clip above sounded ok. i don't see what's wrong with the interview though; i mean, i kind of agree with his general outlook about making music. and dance music being about the place and time it happens in. am i missing something?

and i also don't like projection backdrops at live shows, mostly because they're usually not very good and distracting.

Bungee jumping, amphetamines and self-asphyxiation: These are the three things that the Iceland-based Ben Frost tells me via e-mail "fire our primal emotions."

OH OK

AllMusic Guide called you a composer in their review of By the Throat. Is that what you'd call yourself?

Sure, I mean I've tried all kinds of hats. They're all equally stupid, but of all of them "composer" seems least ridiculous. You say "musician," you are another guitar-slinger, you say "sound artist" and nobody outside of a handful of hardcore Wire subscribers has any interest in what you are doing, you say "artist" and God help you at US border security—you'll have some guy's fist up your colon so fast...

Ultimately, I would prefer that my music comes through the door before I do, or that it's experienced live first. Nobody cares what I call myself when it's coming at you at 120db.

OH ME AND MY MUSIC ARE SO FASCINATING AND COMPLEX AND NUANCED THAT I CAN'T BE BROUGHT DOWN TO THE DEGRADING 'MUSICIAN' CATEGORY.

He presents a good case as to why no one should do uppers---ever.

...

projection much?

srsly if you can't perceive the macho douchiness in that interview, then maybe you're the one projecting.

maybe we're both projecting, onto Ben Frost at one of his 120 db shows, much to his macho douchey chagrin

i agree he comes across as a bit of a gimp. especially when you take into account that one of the songs on his new record is called "we love you michael gira" or something like that

what's wrong with trying to take what you're doing seriously? and talk about it as such? seems like that's all he's trying to do to me. i start not to agree with him when he says our modern culture tries to remove itself from primal fear, because "primal" is a trump card, i think fear has always been social and political even when it's "primal." and then ghostbusters and peter venkman, wtf.

anyway, when i want to listen to something and think about fear, awe, the natural world, and the subconscious, there's a lot of nurse with wound. that's what the clip above reminded me of, but not as good. maybe his other stuff is different? idk

"we love you michael gira"

It's a bonus track and I think it's called "Song For Michael Gira".

"Bungee jumping, amphetamines and self-asphyxiation: These are the three things that the Iceland-based Ben Frost tells me via e-mail "fire our primal emotions.""

This sentence is totally goofy.

really don't see how his response to the "composer" question is pompous. the question itself is stupid, though. he could have done a lot worse

i mean, his opinion there is not really douch-ey or controversial at all and is probably shared by most of the other dudes doing "noisy ambient" stuff

he definitely has a song called "we love you michael gira". it's on theory of machines. there's also one called "study for michael gira" iirc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruMiVMeE8lU

Yeah, it's 'We Love You Michael Gira'. Kind of reminiscent of Caspar Brotzmann or something.

he just sounds like a guy that cares

"there's also one called "study for michael gira" iirc"

Ah that's what I was thinking of. Haven't heard his first record? Is it more of the same?

"music should be all acoustic bc electronic instruments are bad (?) and it is only interesting for conceptual reasons that are conducive to me transcending all categories of artistic production, anyway c u guys im gonna go paintballing w/ my bros and tap into some primal emotions"

ok yeah

I don't really know what this will mean but he's now being 'mentored' by Brian Eno...

http://www.rolexmentorprotege.com/en/music/index.jsp

a little bummed that his interview self is kind of a dick but by the throat is one of the best damn things - musically dude is the real deal in my opinion

big lol @ dude gettin attitude abt "another guitar-slinger" one the one hand and what's his front-of-stage dude playin when he gets on tv? oh right, a Fender Jag

I really like this album, and, after reading the interview, also really like Ben Frost. Don't know what's got ILX's panties in a bunch. Seems like a committed, intelligent, occasionally funny dude.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlPZkR8v2TQ

Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason - SÓLARIS

Released: November 07 2011

Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason are two composers used to shrugging off the distinction between experimental sound-art and deeply felt melodies. Frost’s vast, blackened post-industrial works often crystallize in moments of quiet beauty before disintegrating in pure visceral noise; Bjarnason’s orchestral music marries brutal modernism to classical aesthetics one moment and soaring ethereal harmonies the next. And yet here, on the tail of two widely acclaimed releases; Bjarnason’s PROCESSIONS and Frost’s BY THE THROAT, we are given something altogether new. A unique collaboration, SÓLARIS is a quiet, stilled and all consuming symphonic suite at once as affecting and uncanny as the science- fiction classic that inspired it.

The power of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris is not in its futuristic sets, or in the hypnotic shots of the alien planet’s weird, fluid surface, but it’s in the way he juxtaposes his alien, futuristic elements against the intimately familiar. This is a future not just of flashing lights and video screens, but of wood and wool and leather, of dogs and horses, books and photographs. In Frost & Bjarnason’s SÓLARIS we do find the futuristic, gaseous atmospheres and pulses one might expect from a sci-fi soundtrack. Yet here they are carved instead from the warm, fragile sonorities of a string orchestra -Poland’s Sinfonietta Cracovia- a gently prepared piano whose harmonies warp and melt before transforming again—and waves upon waves of guitar.

http://www.bedroomcommunity.net/releases/solaris

Will buy

It's great!

The new Roll The Dice record on Leaf has a few moments that verge on Frost's 'new agey ambient noisy' approach (other times it seems more like Vladislav Delay gone Sowiesoso or something, not that that's a whole world away)--this piano-led track's got some dark thuds, clanks, draggings and growls to it (hi, Owen--are you still in the land of the Bedroom Community, speaking of whom?):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6lKOSdPsm0

Yes, I'm in that land. I went to see the Bedroom Community documentary at RIFF just a few days ago. Valgeir had mixed all the live performances from the Whale Watching tour in 5.1 and it sounds great, I mean, of course it does, that music was made for 5.1.

Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason - SÓLARIS

Saw them premiere this piece live in Krems earlier this year, fine stuff.

"study (pretentious, moi?) for michael gira" (clunking great coat-tailsing name drop);
"x-box background music" for witold lutoslawski;
"lowest common denominator" for justin broadrick;
"let me do valhalla rising 2" for nicholas winding refn;
"halloween minuet" for andrew mackenzie.
"threnody for dwayne goettel" (dedicated to matt elliot);
"a FIRM grip on a guitar" (so butch!);
o you bad boy with a shotgun in your publicity shot TAKE ME out of my comfort zone.
pissing all over a tarkovsky movie and an eduard artemiev soundtrack?
ultra dud.
moreso that there are so many mentally 14 yrs old puffa jacket dweebs & sweatshort shellac "fuckin kill him" singalongers in the world that he has a career. gadzooks!
love the way he berates james cameron over lack of subtlety & ambiguity. pot / kettle.

You might have a point if his music didn't sound quite so amazing.

By which I mean yes, he does come across as somewhat pretentious and yes, I do find that sort of hard-man-of-noise posturing a little silly, but the quality of sound on his records is just plain incredible to me.

There's no Rolling Classical thread at the moment

And it is too good for the Boomkat thread

But Daniel Bjarnason quietly put out a record last year, last September. I saw a concert in Reykjavik that included a couple of works represented here and it was quite simply the most successful new music premiere I've ever attended. The "free-to-listen" track here is representative. Amazing amazing string writing, this guy is my young favourite composer.

http://danielbjarnason.bandcamp.com/album/over-light-earth

it sounds like jerry goldsmith

We have Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack to "Alien" to prepare everyone's ears for a whole world of dissonant symphonic music

:0

https://soundcloud.com/benfrost/ben-frost-venter

I'm liking Ben Frost, as far as I've listened (thanks to this thread), though maybe it all goes down a little too easily. Or is that my atrophied attention? I don't even remember noticing his name before.

"Too good for the Boomkat thread" < made me chuckle.

New track is awesome.

The 4-minute mark on "Venter" might be my favorite musical moment so far this year.

That Frost & Bjarnsson Solaris thing is quite special; highly recommend giving it a listen

Is Oneohtrix too obvious to be recommended here?

oneohtrix is good, though

New album sounds pretty great.

http://www.thewire.co.uk/img/scale/460/561/2014/05/13/460x561xcover364.jpg.pagespeed.ic.w2gU-T4ub5.jpg

Good to see that the WIRE have finally persuaded Vincent Van Goch to do one last interview.

This thread begins and ends with The Wire.

http://pitchfork.com/features/guest-lists/9406-ben-frost/

Ben Frost big NBA fan.

that Wire cover and this Crack cover are like the yin and yang of hairy electronic dudes

http://image.issuu.com/140506151706-4523788dc6268f606b391963c2ea1954/jpg/page_1_thumb_large.jpg

I like this record but the really high pitched sounds keep making me think I left an old CRT television on mute somewhere.

http://pitchfork.com/advance/447-a-u-r-o-r-a/ dude is the like superchunk of cinematic dronesplosion noise in that he does a very obvious thing very well, i'm into it, but will this one have a rad wolf on the cover

this V A R I A N T EP is pretty cool

still embarrassed that I pretty much missed Ben Frost's whole set at a festival due to time constraints

but he's going to be in Iowa City in April!!

iglu ferrignu post upthread is hilarious -- the one time i listened to this dude the "aggressiveness" of it just felt rote to me

I still rate the quality of this guy's sound design, but there's a few moments on AURORA where these big synths lines come in and it feels like he's channeling Scooter

yeah, check the remix ep

Have previously dismissed him as a bit ... melodramatic/unlistenable ... but he really works on the "Fortitude" TV series.

Sound track seemingly being released tomorrow:

https://boomkat.com/products/music-from-fortitude

New EP is good, but the forthcoming album is even better...

I still rate the quality of this guy's sound design, but there's a few moments on AURORA where these big synths lines come in and it feels like he's channeling Scooter

Why would this be considered as anything other than awesome?

I've been putting off listening to the EP because it sounds so great in concept I just want to devote time to listening to it without distractions very loudly at home!

thank you for album Ben Frost

Indeed!

I feel like these track titles have kind of a homage/parody theme?

"Eurydice's Heel" --> shoulder of Orion? blade runner-esque music?

"A Single Hellfire Missle.." -> hmm who has track titles like that