It’s Wednesday night, 18 February, 2015 as we climb our way up to the rooftop of Brisbane’s classiest ruin, the Brisbane Powerhouse, for tonight’s sold-out performance from Melbourne-born, Icelandic-resident Ben Frost.
We’re met at the top of the stairs by the remarkable figure of Lawrence English who is resplendent in all-black attire with matching wide-brimmed hat. Presenting tonight’s Ben Frost performance on behalf of his acclaimed label Room40, English has the pleasure of opening the night with a set of his sound art and electronic compositions.
With this year marking the 15th anniversary of Room40 and a handful of exciting shows planned across the year to celebrate, English’s experience as an accomplished curator is clearly evident tonight. The graffiti-clad rooftop room is intimate in size and packed to capacity with bodies sprawled across the floor.
We enter the dark, smoky room and wrestle for a space amidst the shadowy figures on the floor. Gradually through the darkness, English introduces the sound of crashing waves. At first it feels meditative but this is quickly transformed by menacing drones that vibrate through my whole body, making me feel glad that I grabbed a pair of complementary ear plugs as I walked in.
Lawrence English - Image © Christian DuellEnglish is a master of doing a lot with very little, carefully manipulating the experience of the room with a simple modulating light that cuts through the sea of smoke and highlights his dark silhouette at the front of the room. The intensity of his set takes me by surprise. I find it to be a powerful and mostly disturbing experience. Occasionally the soundscapes are punctuated by a repeated rhythm or bass pattern that offer some mild reassurance of reality, but for the most part I feel like I’m trapped in some kind of nuclear power-plant meltdown surrounded by mechanical vibrations and shrilling sirens.
The combination of raw field recordings with more manipulated, electronic sounds enhances this sense of anxiety; that the environment that English creates is not just an artificial one but also very real. Gradually the droning and humming subside and the burning light gradually fades to bring the room into darkness. English restores the space with some comforting organ chords, gradually reducing the sound to just the bare hum of the equipment and speakers to close.
The last time I saw Ben Frost perform was at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in Iceland in July, 2014. Playing then inside a giant warehouse with a massive stage, flooded with his wild and colourful visuals, it was a brutal and unrelenting set that was further aggravated by my own jetlag-induced delirium.
Tonight, literally on the other side of the world, in a different climate, time-zone and more intimate setting, it’s a starkly different experience. And although the set begins with an abrasive guitar, after a few minutes the noise is silenced by a gentle wave of keys. Frost’s latest release 'A U R O R A' (2014) was partly written on assignment in the Democratic Republic of Conga and recorded between 2011 and 2013 in Reykjavik and New York.
Ben Frost - Image © Christian DuellIt’s evident that his wide-spanning experiences of time and place have informed the journey that is conveyed both through the album and in tonight’s performance. There is deep sadness, suffering and desperation in this music; brutal sounds of mechanical destruction, like the flesh of metallic animals being ripped apart, and thumping, tribal rhythms that evoke some kind of cult execution. And while most of the set is aggressive and penetrating there are also glimmers of relief and hope. The familiar motif of a short-delay synthesizer reminiscent of a helicopter taking off, gives the music momentum and energy, as if rising from the ashes of all this destruction.
The performance focuses on the recent compositions from 'A U R O R A' throughout the performance, breathing even more power and vitality into tracks like ‘Nolan’ and ‘Venter’. Overall it is the delicate balance between the brutal and ear-piecing industrial noise and the tiny moments of beauty and relief, that make tonight’s performance so rewarding and enjoyable for me.
Ben Frost - Image © Christian DuellFrost has an amazing sensibility for synthesizing starkly contrasting sounds and emotional states. He has the remarkable ability to simultaneously evoke brutality and violence as well as beauty and innocence, resulting in an unsettling feeling that somehow feels enlivening.
After experiencing just over an hour of Frost’s imagined, post-apocalyptic world we’re returned to a normal (and somewhat dull in comparison), world of thank yous and audience applause to end the night. I’m left to contemplate the imprint of Frost and how his dark imagination and experiences of extreme places have produced such brutal beauty.
