Ben Frost Shares New Track 'The River Of Light And Radiation'

Ben Frost announces details of his sixth studio album, Scope Neglect, a bold, visceral and innovative musical statement that begins a new chapter in Frost's already illustrious career. Due out on standard vinyl, CD and digitally via Mute on March 1st, 2024, it launches today with a new track, “The River of Light and Radiation.” Listen to it HERE. 

A limited edition vinyl version is available today via Mutebank and Bandcamp. Purchase it HERE. 

In the sonic crucible of Ben Frost's Scope Neglect, music undergoes a metamorphic alchemy. From the album's opening track, the familiar aural chemistry of metal is immediately untethered, isolated in the vacuum, stripped of its cultural trappings and heavy armory, and then 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 repeated, unfolded over time, revealing crystalline vulnerability.

Frost's titles weave narratives of cycling, perpetual attempts at ignition, math, and mythology; “The River of Light and Radiation”, “Tritium Bath”, “Chimera”. The slow burn of “Unreal in the Eyes of the Dead' channels the disorienting work 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; of a dualistic game of obfuscation and obliteration, a sonic universe stripped to its most elemental core where the mechanics are reconfigured, reengineered, old energies diverted and redirected, scope expanded, contracted, and dissolved.

Frost's diverse impact reverberates across film, television, and opera, earning acclaim for his score for Julia Leigh's Palme d'Or-nominated Sleeping Beauty and scores for TV series such as 1899, including a collaboration with Eliot Sumner (AKA Vaal), Raised By Wolves, Fortitude, and the cult series Dark. Additionally, his Opera creations, including The Wasp Factory and The Murder of Halit Yozgat, have been performed at London's Royal Opera House and Hannover's Staatsoper, cementing his position in the world of contemporary music and live arts.

Following successful exhibitions for Broken Spectre, his collaboration with Richard Mosse, at London's 180 Studios, Melbourne's National Gallery of Victoria and The Momentary Museum Bentonville, Arkansas in 2023, the New York debut of Broken Spectre opens this week at the Jack Shainman Gallery (continuing until March 16th).

Ben Frost's solo installation Among The Petals, a new commission for The Momentary Museum in Arkansas, will run until April. This follows the acclaimed solo installation work A Predatory Chord which Frost presented in Athens in May. Frost's collaboration with artists Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris to score their Prophecy of Butterflies will also be on view in a neighboring gallery at The Momentary.

BEN FROST LIVE 2024:

1/6/2024 - Prague, CZ - Meetfactory

1/27/2024-1/28/2024 - Berlin, DE - CTM Festival

4/6/2024 - The Hague, NL - Rewire Festival, The Hague

4/20/2024 - Catania, IT - Zo Cultural Center

4/23/2024 - Milan, IT - Fog @ Triennale

photo credit: Topper Komm

To post a comment, you must register and login.