Ben Frost - Scope Neglect [Mute]

New album dropping in March.

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Ben Frost presents his first studio album in six years, Scope Neglect, via Mute. Available January 11th on limited edition white vinyl, followed by black vinyl, CD, and digital formats on March 1st.   In the sonic crucible of Ben Frost's Scope Neglect, music undergoes a metamorphic alchemy. From the album’s opening seconds, the familiar aural chemistry of metal is immediately untethered, isolated in the vacuum, stripped of its cultural trappings and heavy armory, and loaded into a particle accelerator.   Where Scope Neglect leans sonically into metal - fuelled by progressive metal outfit Car Bomb’s guitarist Greg Kubacki and bassist Liam Andrews of fellow Australians My Disco - its true form seems to draw more upon the transcendental reveries of the West Coast minimalists. What at first appears confrontational, and ephemeral, is meditatively and methodically unfolded through time, revealing crystalline vulnerabilities.  

Frost’s titles weave narratives of cycling, perpetual attempts at ignition, math, and mythology; ‘Tritium Bath’, ‘Lamb Shift’, ‘Chimera’... The slow burn of ‘Unreal in the Eyes of the Dead’ channels the disorienting writings of author W.G Sebald, whose own work often gives the impression of being only the faint, flickering shadow of its actual referent.   Similarly, this genre-defying music seems to feed on an unseen dark matter. Detached from their native surroundings, guitar shapes roar through negative spaces whose dimension is only revealed through the shadows cast upon them. What remains is the outer scaffolding of structures long since dismantled, and which we can no longer see. What Frost wants us to hear, in other words, is frequently not what he wants us to feel.

Scope Neglect is a deliberate opposition in terms; a dualistic game of obfuscation and obliteration, mechanics reconfigured and reengineered, old energies diverted and redirected, scope expanded, contracted and dissolved. 

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Very excited for this one

Sample sounds a bit boring but expectations are high 

Love his recent volcano field recordings work, really cool 

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This one

Double edit - there was also a follow up EP which I never knew about

  On 1/12/2024 at 10:03 PM, Soloman Tump said:

Love his recent volcano field recordings work, really cool 

 

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This one

https://benfrost.bandcamp.com/album/vakning

 

Double edit - there was also a follow up EP which I never knew about

https://benfrost.bandcamp.com/album/meradalir

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Vakning was highlight of 2023 for me in general, not just field recording-wise.

Digging the pre-view tracks, both in places are reminiscent of the A U R O R A sound palette (to my ears). 

Wow Blanck Mass has got some serious competition in the pretentious album synopsis stakes

A couple of listens in, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Best tracks are probably the two already released along with the last track. Other bits sound a bit like a sludge metal guitarist practicing while they wait for the rest of the band to turn up.

I'd steer clear of the white vinyl pre release too, my pressing sounds rough as hell.

  On 1/22/2024 at 11:04 PM, danshoebridge said:

A couple of listens in, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Best tracks are probably the two already released along with the last track. Other bits sound a bit like a sludge metal guitarist practicing while they wait for the rest of the band to turn up.

I'd steer clear of the white vinyl pre release too, my pressing sounds rough as hell.

Yea i'm not so excited anymore. Still will give it some propper listens

this one is a grower