Ben frost

edited August 2017 in Alternative
Ben Frost has just uploaded 4 Albums / EP's with film music and music for dance performances on Emusic . . .
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Born in 1980 in Melbourne, Australia, Ben Frost relocated to Reykjavík Iceland in 2005 and working together with close friends Valgeir Sigurðsson and Nico Muhly, formed the Bedroom Community record label/collective.

His albums, including Steel Wound (2003), Theory of Machines (2007) and BY THE THROAT (2009) fuse intensely structured sound art with militant post-classical electronic music, shape-shifting physical power with immersive melody, concentrated minimalism with fierce, rupturing dark metal.

In 2010 he was chosen by Brian Eno as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé program for a year of collaboration, one of the outcomes of which was Sólaris; a re-scoring of the Tarkovsky classic for Poland’s Sinfonietta Cracovia. The pair continue to work together on a range of projects.

Frost regularly collaborates with other musicians and artists; in the production of albums such as Tim Hecker’s Ravedeath 1972 and Virgins, SWANS' The Seer, Colin Stetson’s New History Warfare and on various Bedroom Community releases. On the stage Frost has produced scores for choreographers including Wayne McGregor/Random Dance, Akram Khan, Gideon Obarzanek/Chunky Move, and German Director Falk Richter. For film he has composed the score for the Palme d’Or nominated Sleeping Beauty by Julia Leigh, and Djúpið by Icelandic Director Baltasar Kormákur (with Daníel Bjarnason). In the visual arts, Frost travelled with artist Richard Mosse deep beyond the frontlines of war-torn Eastern Congo to produce The Enclave, a multi-channel video and sound installation that premiered at the Venice Biennale in 2013.

Frost marked his debut as a director in 2013 with the première of his first opera, based on Iain Banks' renown 1984 novel, The Wasp Factory.

These various collaborations and alliances underline Frost’s continuing fascination with finding ways of juxtaposing music, rhythm, technology, the body, performance, text, art - beauty and violence - combining and coalescing the roles and procedures of various artistic disciplines in one place.
- Bedroom Community

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Ben Frost - FAR - (2010)
Wayne McGregor’s dynamic style and groundbreaking collaborative approach across dance, film, music, visual art, technology and science has fuelled a string of truly unique works. FAR, which made its world premiere at Sadler’s Wells in 2010, is no exception.

Danced by an ensemble of ten incredible performers, FAR is set to a haunting score by the critically acclaimed composer Ben Frost and features lighting by Lucy Carter, set by rAndom International and costumes by Moritz Junge.

A prolific dance maker and the first resident choreographer of The Royal Ballet to come from contemporary dance, in the past year alone McGregor has delivered world premieres for Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet, Bolshoi Ballet, Radiohead and Elton John. In January 2011, Wayne McGregor was awarded a CBE for his services to dance. His company Wayne McGregor | Random Dance is a Resident Company at Sadler’s Wells.


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Ben Frost - Black Marrow - (2009)

Chunky Move Dance Company
By Erna Ómarsdóttir & Damien Jalet
Music by Ben Frost featuring Oren Ambarchi, Borgar Magnason,
Nico Muhly and Helgi Hrafn Jónson
Costume and Production Design by Alexandra Mein
World Premiere, Melbourne Australia 2009
http://ethermachines.com/together/black-marrow/

- "For much of its hour Black Marrow is more like avant garde physical theatre than straightforward contemporary dance. Choreographers Erna Omarsdottir and Damien Jalet have burst through the boundaries by bringing spoken word, grotesque carny and smatterings of Brecht into the mix. The upshot is a fluttering, disturbing, concept driven piece that skirts a line between the didactic and the visceral.

Its apocalyptic themes are apparent from the outset as shapes heave and writhe beneath a layer of ooze and Ben Frost’s dark rumbling electronic soundscape clicks and burbles with ominous intent. . . . .
Dance Informa

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"This new short film by Gael Garcia Bernal and Marc Silver, details the plight of the tens of thousands of men, women and children who leave their homes in Central and South America each year to travel across Mexico in search of a better life in the USA.

Inspired by the stories of the people who make this journey through Mexico, actor and director Gael García Bernal and director Marc Silver joined forces with Amnesty International to shine a light on the abuses migrants suffer. Told over four parts, the film is a shocking look at a world many people would rather you didn’t know about.

Ben Frost’s soundtrack offers a stark and emotive backdrop to the film, enhancing the already breathtaking and moving scenes captured as the Invisibles’ stories unfolds. We’re hugely grateful to Ben for donating all proceeds from sales directly to Amnesty International.

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A Film by Julia Leigh
Music Written & Performed by Ben Frost
Music Recorded & Produced by Ben Frost and Paul Corley
Additional Programming & Sound Design Paul Corley
Violins by Una Sveinbjarnardóttir
Mixed & Produced at Greenhouse Studios, Reykjavík, Iceland
2011
"Death-haunted, quietly reckless, Lucy is a young university student who takes a job as a Sleeping Beauty. In the Sleeping Beauty Chamber old men seek an erotic experience that requires Lucy’s absolute submission. This unsettling task starts to bleed into Lucy’s daily life and she develops an increasing need to know what happens to her when she is asleep."
http://ethermachines.com/together/sleeping-beauty/

EDIT: august 2017
This post is restored from the wayback machine because just about everything was gone after one of the Emusers "upgrades"
Since the OP, Bedroom Community has left Emusic.

Comments

  • edited March 2014
    Reposting because of the Amnesty International angle:

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    Welcome to this special Amnesty International download page for the Ben Frost soundtrack to ‘The Invisibles’.

    - "This new short film by Gael Garcia Bernal and Marc Silver, details the plight of the tens of thousands of men, women and children who leave their homes in Central and South America each year to travel across Mexico in search of a better life in the USA.

    Inspired by the stories of the people who make this journey through Mexico, actor and director Gael García Bernal and director Marc Silver joined forces with Amnesty International to shine a light on the abuses migrants suffer. Told over four parts, the film is a shocking look at a world many people would rather you didn’t know about.

    Ben Frost’s soundtrack offers a stark and emotive backdrop to the film, enhancing the already breathtaking and moving scenes captured as the Invisibles’ stories unfolds. We’re hugely grateful to Ben for donating all proceeds from sales directly to Amnesty International.

    Download the album now and help Amnesty International to help migrants in Mexico. Free bonus material with every download.

    To watch the film, take action and read more about Amnesty International's Mexico campaign visit:
    http://www.youtube.com/user/invisiblesfilms"


    Message from Ben Frost:
    - "I first had the opportunity to work with Marc Silver a few years ago when he invited me to compose music for a film he made inspired by the swarming phenomenon of birds - the images in that film were overwhelmingly powerful and yet - given the current prevalence of technology and extraneous manipulation of the medium of film that is readily available to every film maker today - they were by contrast unbelievably raw and untouched - a series of incredible moments captured and sewn together, without agenda and without interference.

    Marc Silver doesn't construct drama - he creates space for it to occur and similarly that is what this score is about; a space, a series of spaces within a space in fact.

    You, the public, don't need my music to heighten the inherent tragedy and drama of the Invisibles, and you don't need my music to tell you this situation needs your attention, because through this film, the people, their stories and the spaces that surround them speak every word that needs to be said.

    If there is one thing I want more than anything for you to walk away with from this music, it was and is the overwhelming sense of quiet strength, and of hope."

    - Ben Frost, 5th November 2010 Reykjavík Iceland
  • You can hear all these at Ben Frost's bandcamp page, yay.
  • edited March 2014
    Jay indeed !

    Added to his Soundcloud page 5 days ago (the first in four years):
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    'Venter' - taken from Ben Frost's forthcoming album A U R O R A, out 26/27 May 2014 on Mute / Bedroom Community
  • edited August 2017
    Oh My God !

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    Ben Frost - Live at St Katherine’s (Unsound Festival 2008)
    - "Ben Frost's stunning performance from Unsound Krakow 2008, in St Katherine's, a 16th century Gothic church. The recording was made from the audience seating area, rather than via the mixing desk, to capture a sense of the church's massive interior and acoustics. At Unsound 2009, Biosphere and Stars of the Lid will perform in the same space."
    - IDM
  • bn, fun anecdote - I'd listened to the great performance above, and it went into my fb activity stream. A friend (not a "music friend") posted this on my wall today:
    So, Facebook told me you liked a Ben Frost song on sound cloud, and I thought, " Vince listens to some weird stuff. Let's check this out." Holy hell! That was amazing! I happened to have the ipad plugged in to the home theater at the time. I think the walls were vibrating... Thank you, Vince.
  • This is a great anecdote - thanks . . .
  • I thought I had listened to him before, but I guess not. Just checked out the track karg shared on FB. Fantastic. Now I have to go back through the rest of this thread.
  • Thom, you must listen to Theory of Machines and By the Throat on bandcamp. Incredible records!
  • - one more track from Aurora on Soundcloud:
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    - Nolan
  • edited August 2017
    Right on time !

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    Performed by Ben Frost with Shahzad Ismaily, Greg Fox and Thor Harris.
    Additional Sound Designs and Production by Lawrence English and Tim Hecker.


    - "A U R O R A is Ben Frost’s highly anticipated fifth solo release, his first since the widely acclaimed 2009 album BY THE THROAT.

    A U R O R A aims directly, through its monolithic construction, at blinding luminescent alchemy; not with benign heavenly beauty but through decimating magnetic force.

    This is no pristine vision of digital music, it is a filthy, uncivilized offering of interrupted future time where emergency flares illuminate ruined nightclubs and the faith of the dancefloor rests in a diesel-powered generator spewing forth its own extinction, eating rancid fuel so loudly it threatens to overrun the very music it is powering."

    - Bandcamp

    - "A U R O R A, Frost’s fifth studio album, will be preceded by a series of live dates, launching with a performance at the Village Underground, London, on 26 April and festival appearances including Sonar in June and ATP Iceland in July.

    Performed by Ben Frost with Greg Fox, Shahzad Ismaily and Thor Harris and largely written in Eastern DR Congo, A U R O R A aims directly, through its monolithic construction, at blinding luminescent alchemy; not with benign heavenly beauty but through decimating magnetic force.

    Starved of all the adornments of its predecessor; wholly absent of guitar, of piano, of string instruments and natural wooden intimacy, A U R O R A offers a defant new world of fiercely synthetic shapes and galactic interference, pummeling skins and pure metals."

    - Mute Records


  • Just in @ Soundcloud:

    'Rare Decay' was an exclusive bonus track on the Japanese edition of 'A U R O R A'
  • - releases December 2, 2016,  one track avaible for streaming:
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    Ben Frost - The Wasp Factory


     - "In advance of new music from Ben Frost in 2017, Bedroom Community is excited to present the definitive recorded version of his 2013 opera and directorial stage debut, The Wasp Factory, based on the novel by the late Iain Banks. . . . ."

    - Jay !
  • edited December 2016
    Out now on Bedroom Community:


    Ben Frost - The Wasp Factory

    - "In advance of new music from Ben Frost in 2017, Bedroom Community is excited to present the definitive recorded version of his 2013 opera and directorial stage debut, The Wasp Factory, based on the novel by the late Iain Banks.

    - "Setting his unwitting characters against the backdrop of vast, implacable forces of nature—storm, sea, fire, and even their own madness— Frost reaches deep into his formidable arsenal to reveal an unexpected warmth, from the composer of electronic experiments like AURORA and Theory of Machines. The focus here is on the live sound of the Reykjavík Sinfonia, recorded in Abbey Road’s Studio II and, for the first time, the human voice. He sets David Pountney's Libretto to tuneful, even soulful vocal lines; an extraordinarily unreliable narrator describing scenes of extreme violence and horror in music of incongruous loveliness.

    Rather than attempt to represent his protagonist onstage with a singing, acting boy, Frost infamously cast an ensemble of 3 women to give voice to his dissociated internal monologues: Lieselot De Wilde, Jördis Richter and Wildbirds & Peacedrums' own Mariam Wallentin. And just as he did with the highly detailed instrumental writing on his albums like AURORA or Sólaris (composed with Daníel Bjarnason), here Frost creates a seamless collaboration of performer and interpreter, each singer and each player fully and sensitively inhabiting their respective nuanced parts. And the recorded result defiantly stands apart from the realm of traditionally “classical recordings”, framing in the highest definition every moment of this studio performance - the confrontationally close breath of strings and vocalist alike push and pull against a range of digital shapes and textures.

    The Wasp Factory is not too far from those albums in terms of continuity with Frost's thematic obsessions. Like Sólaris, which was inspired by another so-called "sci-fi" novelist's literary masterpiece, The Wasp Factory asks what it means to be a human being, and what happens when that human being gets lost in the labyrinth of his own psyche. And like AURORA, and By the Throat, it asks where—and whether—the boundary can be drawn separating the human animal from the terrible, destructive brutality of nature."
    - Also on Emusic.
    Ben Frost on directing and composing The Wasp Factory  (The Royal Opera)
  • New EP from Ben on Bedroom Community (released July 28, 2017):


    In the summer of 2016 Ben Frost landed in Chicago to work with Steve Albini. Over two weeks - vast systems; unstable, overloaded, and on the verge of collapse - were fed into an array of amplifiers inside a cavernous studio. Shapes were formed, speakers were torn. Behind the glass Albini committed live performances to tape; slashing at them intermittently with a razorblade. More than 2 hours of music was recorded. The Threshold of Faith EP is the first release of music from those sessions.


    Steve Albini
  • edited November 2017
     
    - Thirteen new soundtrack specific compositions from Ben Frost, a name you should be familiar with by now. The Australian born, Iceland dwelling sound artist is no stranger to film scores, his vast and foreboding ambient pieces suiting the medium perfectly. For Super Dark Times he channels the technology of the mid 90s through delay pedals and distortion fx with unbelievably gripping results. SDT is a film score on paper, but a surprisingly good stand alone album at the same time, the title track balancing delicate FM synthesis with brooding background atmospherics with finesse.
    - Bleep

    "A harrowing but meticulously observed look at teenage lives in the era prior to the Columbine High School massacre, SUPER DARK TIMES marks the feature debut of gifted director Kevin Phillips, whose critically acclaimed 2015 short film "Too Cool For School" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival."
  • "Black friday" on Bedroom Community:
    We are marking all Digital, CDs and Vinyl's half price this Black Friday! Check our shop to see what titles you may be missing. Simply use the code bcfriday at the checkout.

    - Including the new Ben Frost album:

    The Centre Cannot Hold
    -  was recorded over ten days by Steve Albini in Chicago. The music exists not in space, but in a space; it is a document of an event, of a room, and of the composer within it. It is music that is not fully controlled and appears to be anxiously, often violently competing against its creator.

    An exercise in limitation and chromatic saturation, The Centre Cannot Hold is an attempt at transcribing a spectrum of glowing ultramarine into sound.

    Watch the video for Threshold Of Faith, the opening cut from the new album, a new collaboration shot in the winter of 2016 in Reykjavík, Iceland with conceptual documentary photographer Richard Mosse and Cinematographer Trevor Tweeten: po.st/BFThresholdVideo

    Ben Frost released Threshold Of Faith, a seven-track 12” and digital EP, last month. Pitchfork describe the track title track as “moving from heroic vistas into a garbled, snow-blinded melee. Distant choral pads, a glistening upper-register sheen, submerged piano, and groaning harmonies all stack up into a geologic crescendo that extends into infinity.” while The 405 describe the EP as “scorching and beautiful”.

  • All That You Love Will Be Eviscerated, a brand new EP featuring new tracks and previously unreleased remixes from Alva Noto and Steve Albini, out on 23 March 2018. Described by The Quietus as “aural equivalent of a world turned to ash”
    - Mute

    BTW, Bedroom Community is moving on Emusic again :)
  • edited August 2020

    Performed by Ben Frost & Sinfonietta Cracovia
    Brass & Woodwind performed by Michał Górczyński, Urszula Januchta, Tomasz Duda, Piotr Mełech, Maurycy Idzikowski, Piotr Wróbel, Michał Fetler, Jan Gołębiowski
    Guitars performed by Skúli Sverrisson
    Orchestra Arranged & Conducted by Petter Ekman
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