In 1925, the American writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft wrote: »The attraction of the hauntingly macabre is generally limited, since it requires a certain amount of imagination and the ability to disengage from everyday life from the reader.« And while H.P. Lovecraft was referring to the horror literature of his time, in 2014, the Australian producer Ben Frost doesn’t have a problem with that kind of attraction. Because his new record »Aurora« engulfs us, embraces and destroys us. (It’s not hard to figure out that Ben Frost lives on Iceland now). There are nine tracks, and each of them is equivalent to an elemental force. In »Venter«, he builds up the power piece by piece, before the track breaks down, only to have a simple melody arise from the deconstruction. This record is a monolith, a glittering monstrosity, whose black still swallows the darkest night. Just take the leap from »Flex« to »Nolan« – when noise suddenly enters this little piece of atmosphere, it takes your breath away. Frost himself has best described this record with »The Teeth Behind Kisses« because every sweet hug turns out to be a stranglehold in the end. Minimalism, art, ambient and experimental set the direction here, and still Frost doesn’t try to connect things that don’t match. »Aurora« never comes along as overly complicated or tense. Frost has just planted the seeds and now allows the weeds to grow all over the place. In the end, the silence breaks your bones just as heavily as the loudest noise could. And in between, you’ll still find melodies coming and going. It’s all about atmosphere, really, which is why this record has its very own ghosts – but it doesn’t need them for fighting, it just releases them into nothingness. All their cries, their wails and their fears can be found on this album. They are the core, they are what makes »Aurora« so incredibly appealing. The price: A piece of one’s mind. But for that you can hear the creaks in the world’s frame. And it’s beyond beautiful.
Aurora
