LOL @ that interview linked upthread and @ the idea of this entitled douche thinking anyone should actually care what he has to say about anything
― silence is a rhythm too (Turangalila), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 13:37 (fourteen years ago) link
Haven't read it yet, but yeah, he seems to take himself very seriously, for better or worse.
― Vision Creation Mansun (NickB), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 13:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Well, and there really isn't anything objectionable about his music but it's not like he's the second coming of Penderecki.
― silence is a rhythm too (Turangalila), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 14:17 (fourteen years ago) link
or that there's aren't already thousands of people making this sort of music.
― jed_, Wednesday, 2 June 2010 14:20 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― Vision Creation Mansun (NickB), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 14:38 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― plax (ico), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 19:05 (fourteen years ago) link
what's dumb about it?
― I am an old guy, and I prefer the late 90s. (Matt P), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 19:17 (fourteen years ago) link
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?
― I am an old guy, and I prefer the late 90s. (Matt P), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 19:25 (fourteen years ago) link
and i also don't like projection backdrops at live shows, mostly because they're usually not very good and distracting.
― I am an old guy, and I prefer the late 90s. (Matt P), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 19:28 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― silence is a rhythm too (Turangalila), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 19:36 (fourteen years ago) link
...
― I am an old guy, and I prefer the late 90s. (Matt P), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 19:37 (fourteen years ago) link
projection much?
srsly if you can't perceive the macho douchiness in that interview, then maybe you're the one projecting.
― silence is a rhythm too (Turangalila), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 19:40 (fourteen years ago) link
maybe we're both projecting, onto Ben Frost at one of his 120 db shows, much to his macho douchey chagrin
― I am an old guy, and I prefer the late 90s. (Matt P), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 19:44 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― fuckd and bombd (r1o natsume), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 19:45 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― I am an old guy, and I prefer the late 90s. (Matt P), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 19:57 (fourteen years ago) link
"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.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 20:09 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― hobbes, Wednesday, 2 June 2010 20:13 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― hobbes, Wednesday, 2 June 2010 20:14 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― fuckd and bombd (r1o natsume), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 20:16 (fourteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruMiVMeE8lU
Yeah, it's 'We Love You Michael Gira'. Kind of reminiscent of Caspar Brotzmann or something.
― Vision Creation Mansun (NickB), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 20:16 (fourteen years ago) link
he just sounds like a guy that cares
― 156, Wednesday, 2 June 2010 20:17 (fourteen years ago) link
"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?
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 20:33 (fourteen years ago) link
"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"
― plax (ico), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 20:55 (fourteen years ago) link
ok yeah
― I am an old guy, and I prefer the late 90s. (Matt P), Wednesday, 2 June 2010 21:01 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― WOOD! GOBLINS! (NickB), Thursday, 22 July 2010 12:55 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― les yeux sans aerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Thursday, 22 July 2010 13:01 (fourteen years ago) link
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
― les yeux sans aerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Thursday, 22 July 2010 13:05 (fourteen years ago) link
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.
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Tuesday, 24 August 2010 21:29 (fourteen years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlPZkR8v2TQ
Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason - SÓLARISReleased: November 07 2011Ben 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.
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
― master musicians of jamiroquai (NickB), Sunday, 2 October 2011 21:52 (twelve years ago) link
Will buy
― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Sunday, 2 October 2011 23:14 (twelve years ago) link
It's great!
― ste throkes (Ówen P.), Monday, 3 October 2011 00:03 (twelve years ago) link
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
― Spectrum Spools presents: Blogosfear (Craig D.), Monday, 3 October 2011 00:28 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― ste throkes (Ówen P.), Monday, 3 October 2011 03:21 (twelve years ago) link
Ben Frost and Daníel Bjarnason - SÓLARIS
Saw them premiere this piece live in Krems earlier this year, fine stuff.
― ban this sick stunt (anagram), Monday, 3 October 2011 08:04 (twelve years ago) link
"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.
― iglu ferrignu, Monday, 3 October 2011 18:02 (twelve years ago) link
You might have a point if his music didn't sound quite so amazing.
― master musicians of jamiroquai (NickB), Monday, 3 October 2011 18:13 (twelve years ago) link
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.
― master musicians of jamiroquai (NickB), Monday, 3 October 2011 18:30 (twelve years ago) link
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
― the most important comma of all time (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, 6 February 2014 13:12 (ten years ago) link
it sounds like jerry goldsmith
― massaman gai, Thursday, 6 February 2014 15:21 (ten years ago) link
We have Jerry Goldsmith's soundtrack to "Alien" to prepare everyone's ears for a whole world of dissonant symphonic music
― the most important comma of all time (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, 6 February 2014 15:38 (ten years ago) link
:0
https://soundcloud.com/benfrost/ben-frost-venter
― Number None, Sunday, 23 March 2014 01:16 (ten years ago) link
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.
― _Rudipherous_, Monday, 24 March 2014 03:27 (ten years ago) link
"Too good for the Boomkat thread" < made me chuckle.
― djh, Monday, 24 March 2014 20:54 (ten years ago) link
New track is awesome.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 25 March 2014 12:52 (ten years ago) link
The 4-minute mark on "Venter" might be my favorite musical moment so far this year.
― Herbie Handcock (Murgatroid), Sunday, 30 March 2014 05:59 (ten years ago) link
That Frost & Bjarnsson Solaris thing is quite special; highly recommend giving it a listen
Is Oneohtrix too obvious to be recommended here?
― a duiving caTCH, a stuolllen bayeeeess (jamescobo), Sunday, 30 March 2014 06:10 (ten years ago) link
oneohtrix is good, though
― massaman gai, Sunday, 30 March 2014 10:31 (ten years ago) link
New album sounds pretty great.
― crowhurst, Tuesday, 1 April 2014 15:01 (ten years ago) link
http://www.thewire.co.uk/img/scale/460/561/2014/05/13/460x561xcover364.jpg.pagespeed.ic.w2gU-T4ub5.jpg
― "got ye!" (flamboyant goon tie included), Wednesday, 14 May 2014 16:09 (ten years ago) link
Good to see that the WIRE have finally persuaded Vincent Van Goch to do one last interview.
― Doran, Wednesday, 14 May 2014 17:18 (ten years ago) link
This thread begins and ends with The Wire.
― goth colouring book (anagram), Wednesday, 14 May 2014 17:31 (ten years ago) link
http://pitchfork.com/features/guest-lists/9406-ben-frost/
Ben Frost big NBA fan.
― One bad call from barely losing to (Alex in SF), Monday, 19 May 2014 12:00 (ten years ago) link
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
― Merdeyeux, Monday, 19 May 2014 13:15 (ten years ago) link
I like this record but the really high pitched sounds keep making me think I left an old CRT television on mute somewhere.
― This Is Not An ILX Username (LaMonte), Wednesday, 21 May 2014 23:14 (ten years ago) link
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
― adam, Thursday, 22 May 2014 15:54 (ten years ago) link
this V A R I A N T EP is pretty cool
― valleys of your mind (mh), Tuesday, 9 December 2014 15:55 (nine years ago) link
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!!
― valleys of your mind (mh), Tuesday, 9 December 2014 15:56 (nine years ago) link
iglu ferrignu post upthread is hilarious -- the one time i listened to this dude the "aggressiveness" of it just felt rote to me
― (曇り) (clouds), Tuesday, 9 December 2014 15:58 (nine years ago) link
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
― sosmix klopp (NickB), Tuesday, 9 December 2014 16:02 (nine years ago) link
yeah, check the remix ep
― valleys of your mind (mh), Tuesday, 9 December 2014 16:13 (nine years ago) link
Have previously dismissed him as a bit ... melodramatic/unlistenable ... but he really works on the "Fortitude" TV series.
― djh, Wednesday, 18 May 2016 21:48 (eight years ago) link
Sound track seemingly being released tomorrow:
https://boomkat.com/products/music-from-fortitude
― djh, Wednesday, 15 March 2017 21:04 (seven years ago) link
New EP is good, but the forthcoming album is even better...
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 10 August 2017 04:20 (seven years ago) link
Why would this be considered as anything other than awesome?
― angelo irishagreementi (ledge), Thursday, 10 August 2017 08:06 (seven years ago) link
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!
― mh, Thursday, 10 August 2017 13:45 (seven years ago) link
thank you for album Ben Frost
― mh, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 14:49 (six years ago) link
Indeed!
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 15:37 (six years ago) link
I feel like these track titles have kind of a homage/parody theme?
― mh, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 16:05 (six years ago) link
"Eurydice's Heel" --> shoulder of Orion? blade runner-esque music?
"A Single Hellfire Missle.." -> hmm who has track titles like that
― mh, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 16:06 (six years ago) link