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Australian born, Icelandic based composer and musician, Ben Frost has been shaping industrial soundscapes for well over 15 years now. A combination of guitar distortion, gravity sucking bass drops and crystalline keyboard harmonies are his stock in trade. The Centre Cannot Hold is his fifth studio album and his first for Mute records and was recorded by the legendary Steve Albini in his hometown of Chicago over 10 days.

Frost’s musical style leans to the cinematic and he possesses an uncanny ability to conjure up near future dystopian scores at the drop of a hat. With his minimalist approach he can turn menacing feedback into classical ambience so effortlessly, it is no surprise that his work has been used in film, television, opera & installations.  However, The Centre Cannot Hold is a much denser and inward looking album than any of his previous offerings and Frost himself has referred to it as “an attempt at transcribing a spectrum of glowing ultramarine into sound”.

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The claustrophobic opening of Threshold of Faith  reinforces the proximity that Frost was recording in – whilst the synthetic respirator noises combined with gut wrenching bass stabs add a whole new level of anxiety to the track. His signature cinematic sound is in full swing on A Sharp Blow To The Head, Ionia & Eurydice’s Heel – creating new sonic atmospheres by manipulating distortion and blowing a few speakers in the process. However, it is on the brutally named All That You Love Will Be Eviscerated  that Frost really shines. For over eight minutes he displays a remarkable amount of restraint as the track resonates between haunting synths and foreboding static. If you close your eyes long enough, you can almost imagine the shimmering different shades and hues of ultramarine blue.

By placing limitations on the recording process Ben Frost has created a remarkable piece of work with The Centre Cannot Hold.  At times his sound took on a life of its own, pushing and pulling against its creator in a small space, vying for dominance whilst Albini committed the results to tape. The end result leaves Frost delicately balanced on the precipice of obliteration.

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AMNPLIFY – DB