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Ben Frost

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Location: Reykjavic, Iceland

Website: http://myspace.com/theghostofbenfrost

Bio: The music of Ben Frost is about contrast; influenced as much by black metal and punk rock as by classical minimalism, Frost’s throbbing guitar-based textures ... (more) emerge from nothing and slowly coalesce into huge, forbidding forms that often eschew conventional structures in favor of the inevitable unfoldings of vast mechanical systems.
On albums like Steel Wound, released on the Room40 label in 2003 (described by Pitchfork as “an exemplary ambient experience”) and “Theory of Machines” on Bedroom Community in 2007, Frost’s music is more than a cerebral exercise and has an undeniable visceral presence, felt as much as heard. His compositions are created with an acute awareness of the listener and their comfort thresholds, exploiting every extreme of pitch and volume. His notorious, building-shaking performances at international festivals including Montreal’s famed MUTEK combine amplified electronics with the furious thrashing of live guitars. His music’s intense physicality has filled gallery spaces and driven award-winning (ARS ELECTRONICA Prize, Helpmann Academy Award) contemporary dance productions by Chunky Move, the Icelandic Dance Company and ongoing collaborations with dancer/choreographer Erna Ómarsdottír.
The massive scale of Frost’s music often projects a sense of remoteness and isolation and yet he remains in demand as an artistic collaborator, having performed and worked with/for artists as diverse and acclaimed as Björk, Stars Like Fleas, Tim Hecker, Oren Ambarchi, Christian Fennesz and Jóhann Jóhannsson, and with celebrated Bedroom Community labelmates Sam Amidon (Appalachian folksinger), Nico Muhly (classical composer), and longtime collaborator Valgeir Sigurðsson with whom Frost shares the recording facility Greenhouse Studios in Reykjavík.
Underlying Frost’s often noisy, defiant aesthetic is a quiet and welcoming humanity, and a subtle sense of emotional drama which has recently bought him to the attention of the film world, where in 2008, utilizing the Icelandic string quartet Amiina, Frost composed the tender but ominous score for the forthcoming true-crime feature film In Her Skin, starring Sam Neill and Guy Pearce; a cinematic sensibility also pervades his much-anticipated forthcoming LP BY THE THROAT. (less)