Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.10.2017, Page 38

The Centre
Cannot Hold
Ben Frost’s ambitious new LP tackles sound,
politics, and the idea of art
Words: John Rogers Photo: Salar Kheradpejouh
Ben Frost stands on stage between
huge speakers, behind a blinking
array of gear. His set jolts to life
with the near-deafening sound of a
jet engine warming up. It’s a seem-
ingly endless crescendo, delivered
at bone-shaking volume—a raw,
thrilling racket that sends endor-
phins rushing through my blood-
stream. Ben appears completely
engaged in the task of performing,
staring manically at the various
readouts as his set evolves gradually
through waves of bassy distortion
and pulses of searing, in-the-red
noise. He appears to be almost bat-
tling his equipment, and even the
room itself, in an attempt to push
the sound beyond reason, to a point
of transcendence.
“It’s true, it is a fight,” says Ben,
a thoughtful and quiet conversa-
tionalist when he’s away from the
stage. “But it’s a self-imposed one.
The software I use isn’t narrative or
time-based—the constituent parts
are on their own loop, and they don’t
pay heed to each other. It’s a chaotic
ecosystem that I’m ultimately work-
ing to wrangle. And it can be unpre-
dictable.”
Danger and overload
Ben’s will to push his sound to such
a hard-to-reach peak, and the ensu-
ing struggle, is compelling to watch.
His performances are reminiscent
of witnessing the test-flight of an
experimental aircraft that could ei-
ther smash a world speed record, or
just as easily tumble back to earth as
flaming debris.
“It’s a funny thing, particularly
in a live situation—my perception
of the way the sound and music is
working is very determined by one
or two centimetres on the faders,”
he says. “There’s a spot where it’s
okay, but a little
movement, and then
it’s really working.
It’s about volume,
but also pressure,
and the way it’s physically hitting
my body. The air becomes charged.
There are elements of danger and
overload, I guess—but it’s not meas-
urable in decibels. It’s just a feeling.
And it’s different in every space.”
It’s a process that Ben likens to
the travails of contemporary danc-
ers. “What I love about dance is the
idea that the body is the limitation,”
he says. “There’s a ceiling—you
wanna bend a limb to a certain
place, but you come up against facts
of evolution. If it’s not physically
possible, you can find an illusory
technique to make it appear that
way. Maybe in ways, as an artist, I
expect that of myself. If there’s no
struggle, it’s invalid, in a way.”
Amplifier ensemble
We speak on the eve of the release
of Ben’s latest album, entitled ‘The
Centre Cannot Hold.’ In contrast
with his usually largely self-con-
tained, Iceland-based working pro-
cess, this record was made in the
US, with iconic producer Steve Albi-
ni at the controls.
“He’s a strong presence to be
around,” says Ben. “He’s a master of
the art of recording. On a practical
level, everything on the record ex-
isted inside a computer, fed out to
a room full of speakers and ampli-
fiers. I could have set up in the con-
trol room, but I made a decision to
place myself in the live room. I made
myself the perform-
er. My experience
of what I was doing
was immediate, and
what he was doing
was on the other side of six inch-
es of glass. There was a separation
there—a dialogue, and a translation
that occurred.”
Music 38The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 18 — 2017
gpv.is/music
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