Top Albums: #2 - A U R O R A by Ben Frost In the age of digital production, music production has been effectively sanitized, and this force is both democratic, allowing music created in bedrooms to have the polish of professional production, but also incredibly homogenizing. Fuzz and feedback are easily eliminated, or can be generated and added back into a track artificially. Reverb has taken over, or as Joe has commented, everything on the radio sounds like it was recorded in a dumpster. A U R O R A is an album which defies clean and neat production, exchanging it for raw feedback, distortion and noise. That probably sounds horrifying, and it most certainly is an album which refuses to allow the listener easy access to it. But the success of A U R O R A is Frosts ability to craft powerful melodies which lie behind this distortion, flashing in and out like bursts of heat and light. The result is music that sounds like it is tearing itself apart even as it is constructing its themes, caught in a violent cycle of creation and entropy, unlike anything else produced this year, and directly counter to the predominant production trends of the rest of 2014. Venter (embedded) exemplifies Frosts dissonant and chaotic creative process. The foundation of the track is a series of samples pulled from sessions with two of the most precise drummers in music today (Thor Harris of Swans and Greg Fox of Guardian Alien) being pushed to the point of exhaustion. The samples repeat, but also falter and trip over themselves and each other, clipping in and out, fostering an air of uncertainty as Frost builds layers of drones and chimes on top of it. Venter has a double meaning--named after Brian Venter, the first biologist to successfully synthesize life in a lab, while also implying something brimming with anger, the track drops to near silence before bursting forth with a cataclysm of life/violence. A soaring synth melody sturggles against layers of distortion and feedback, the drums still pounding on beneath all of it. There is a sense of relief when the track concludes, like all noise tracks, and yet that melody, like others throughout all of A U R O R A is a perfect earworm that sticks with you in the silence. For the best experience, forgo earbuds and turn your speakers all the way up, especially if you have a subwoofer.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 22:17:33 +0000
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