Ben Frost – A U R O R A

May 26, 2014 • Bedroom Community

Ben Frost is one of those musicians that I sometimes forget about and don't really like to discuss, even though the music is definitely up my alley. It's not that this album isn't good—far from it—it's just the kind of thing that's so difficult to describe and have the description be useful, especially if the reader hasn't heard anything similar before. But it's still something very much worth experiencing.

I guess the best I can do for now is that A U R O R A falls under this kind of widely-scoped pseudogenre one might just call "soundscape"—it's vaguely electronic, vaguely industrial, vaguely ambient-drone-ish, and there's a few more traditional influences thrown around as well (a bit of rock, a bit of classical, etc.). Something like Tim Hecker's recent album comes to mind. Frost's music is much more rhythmic, though, and there are plenty of beat-based tracks with actual melodies and maybe what you could even call hooks, barely—though we are still very, very far from "traditional" music. Most of the music is structured around clanging, harsh, abstract noise, plenty of samples, and some synthesizers but it's hard to generalize since each track is pretty different from the rest. The recurring tubular bells are a very nice touch, though.

It's a bit reminiscent of a soundtrack in a few ways, having this sort of expressive imagery to it that feels very abstract but also somewhat meaningful, though any perceived meaning is of course very subjective. (Granted, Frost does do quite a few actual soundtracks, so this shouldn't be surprising.) To me, at least, it has this sort of grand and cinematic feeling without there really being that much going on under the surface—just a very carefully-composed set of sounds and occasional melodies. On the other hand, the same thing happens here that happens with a lot of albums that are very abstract: without a lot of context for the music, one can easily get lost or distracted and lose interest in what's going on. That usually happens to me about two-thirds of the way through this album (on the relatively-dull "Sola Fide").

But while I'm not sure I'm as enthralled with this album as I was by the other one by him I've heard, By the Throat, it's definitely up there in the same league. I feel like Frost is getting soundscaping down to a science and honing his style, so where By the Throat was a bit rawer and messier, this one is more refined and streamlined. Not that that's a bad thing, by any means; I'm liking A U R O R A quite a bit overall, although I think it's going to take a few more listens to fully sink in.