Ben Frost, The Centre Cannot Hold, A Review (2017)

Ben Frost, The Centre Cannot Hold, A Review (2017)

By: Ghost Writer

Rock N Roll Animal

To be fair, Australian born electronic artist Ben Frost hasn't been able to come up with a decent follow up to his impressive musical deliveries from 2009's By The Throat or 2014's AURORA, his association with legendary avant-garde artist Brian Eno didn't brought us a much desired collaborative record, despite Eno's ear for "not of this Earth 's sounds", it seems that his current status as producer of larger than life arena bands like Coldplay or U2 didn't give both artists a common ground to work on, but it certainly revitalized Eno's career, who has become more prolific than he has in years, for Frost, well, he obviously went completely the other route, from Eno's current fascination with digital music, to Chicago's abrasive artist Steve Albini, at first the collaboration might seem odd with Albini's affinity for analog recordings against Frost's digital pieces, but ten days with Albini's in Chicago and a record named The Centre Cannot Hold are signs that Frost's love for extreme sounds and Albini's early career with the might Big Black (a dissonant post punk band with Albini playing all the instrument in the early days, plus a drum machine) might be an adequate match, giving perhaps to Frost, the perfect context for this new set of songs.

If someone could give us a broad vision about the world, that might be Frost, the man has constantly traveled from Australia, to Iceland, to the UK, to the Congo and finally to Chicago in the USA, and in a way The Centre Cannot Hold tell is about the current condition of the world, where extremes seem to be coming out of the shadows and into the main stage of politics, traditional positions losing ground to extreme postures getting the worst of every situation, from the resurrection of nationalism in Europe, to the failure in politics in the USA and to the menace of nuclear weapons coming from Asia, is the perfect scene for the arrival of new extreme music from Frost, Threshold of Faith, the album opener starts in a glorious abrasive way, the footprint of Albini immediately felt on Frost music, no intros and no atmosphere, just the direct brutality of the ugliest of sounds, nothing human in here, just pure machine depravity, there is a moment where Frost tries to bring some beauty to the process, but his fist on the table sort of percussion prevents this from going into ambient music zone, frost repeats himself a bit on some sounds brought from his classic By The Throat, while on A Sharp Blow in Passing he is able to bring even more malevolence to the music, Frost sounds better in control on this piece, as synth sounds dominate the mix, giving some interesting degree of purity to the music, but ugliness is quickly brought back on Trauma Theory, with Frost´s electronics going into really interesting places here, with Frost more into noise rather than into melody, redefining his sound here and definitely changing his approach from previous records.

Eurydice´s Heel and Meg Ryan Eyez sound like complimentary pieces, one getting into dramatic pure synth noise, and the other a small quasi ambient piece that needs to be heard on detail, while on Ionia, Frost again gets into unknown territory, he explores a universe close to people like the great Daniel Lopatin, aka Oneothrix Point Never, and then making a splash into minimalism and some Arvo Part like structures on the enigmatically titled Healthcare.

A tune like All That You Love Will Be Eviscerated not only exhibits a complex title, is perhaps also one of the most complex pieces on the whole album, it gives Frost ample space for experimentation and to build something definitely different and uncompromising, his music becomes fragmented, erratic (in a cool way) and menacing at the same time, a John Carpenter influence is clearly felt at moments, but also a new deeper immersion in ambient music, a delicacy that is definitely welcomed in the Frost palette that exhibit perhaps traces of the influence Eno could imprint on Frost, as the second part of the tune moves on, we are slowly taken into familiar Frost sound, paranoia and danger transmitted thru sound and Frost been able to communicate in an astonishing way like in no place before on this record, his skills as a sound shaper is put here to the front and he excels at it, although not long enough, as momentum is broke on Entropy in Blue, a piece that sounds like an outtake from AURORA, managing to create here a deep, multidimensional piece with some unexpected jumps into the void, The Centre Cannot Hold arrived in a precise moment where it could meant a lot, is easily to hear Frost trying to expand his sound but in the end, in an unexplainable way returning to the safe places he now well, I´m beginning to think that Frost is really being trapped in his own artistic creation, the fact that he went for Steve Albini might confirm my thoughts, the record is far from the best Frost had deliver to us before, it lacks cohesion and narrative, it´s not the Centre, but the concept the one “that cannot hold” here.