When: 7pm on Friday 14 November 2014
Where: Gorilla, 54-56 Whitworth Street West, Manchester M1 5WW
We’re excited to be presenting Ben Frost’s first Manchester show in over four years.
Born in 1980 in Melbourne, Australia, Ben Frost relocated to Reykjavík, Iceland in 2005 and, working together with close friends Valgeir Sigurðsson and Nico Muhly, formed the Bedroom Community record label/collective. His albums – including Steel Wound (2003), Theory of Machines (2007) and BY THE THROAT (2009) – fuse intensely structured sound art with militant post-classical electronic music, shape-shifting physical power with immersive melody, concentrated minimalism with fierce, rupturing dark metal.
In 2010 he was chosen by Brian Eno as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé programme for a year of collaboration. One of the outcomes of which was Sólaris; a re-scoring of the Tarkovsky classic for Poland’s Sinfonietta Cracovia. The pair continue to work together on a range of projects. Frost regularly collaborates with other musicians and artists; in the production of albums such as Tim Hecker’s Ravedeath 1972 and Virgins, Swans‘ The Seer, Colin Stetson’s New History Warfare and on various Bedroom Community releases.
On the stage Frost has produced scores for choreographers including Wayne McGregor/Random Dance, Akram Khan, Gideon Obarzanek/Chunky Move and German director Falk Richter, while in film, he composed the score for the Palme d’Or-nominated Sleeping Beauty by Julia Leigh and Djúpið by Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur (with Daníel Bjarnason). And in the visual arts, where, with artist Richard Mosse, Frost travelled deep beyond the frontlines of war-torn Eastern Congo to produce The Enclave; a multi-channel video and sound installation that premiered at the Venice Biennale in 2013.
Last year also marked Frost’s debut as a director with the premiere of his first opera, based on Iain Bank‘s infamous 1984 novel The Wasp Factory. These various collaborations and alliances underline Frost’s continuing fascination with finding ways of juxtaposing music, rhythm, technology, the body, performance, text, art – beauty and violence – combining and coalescing the roles and procedures of various artistic disciplines in one place.
A U R O R A, Frost’s highly anticipated fifth solo release and first since BY THE THROAT in 2009, was released earlier this year. Released by Mute in collaboration with Bedroom Community, the album has once again gained universal praise.
‘Nothing Frost’s released before this has resonated with such life, such energy and desire for breaching an invisible barrier separating the extraordinary from the wholly otherworldly’ – Clash
‘The heaviest and most combustive electronic album of the year’ – Stereogum
Main support comes from Hey! Manchester favourite Denis Jones. Denis Jones has, over the last three years, developed a show-stopping live performance based around the core of his exceptional and unique guitar-playing style and rich, soulful voice. Utilising a loop station and all manner of samplers and effects, he creates vast, complex orchestrations of beat-box rhythms, multi-layered vocals and other-wordly sounds, which veer from subtle heart-wrenching folk and blues to heavy bass-driven electronica.
Opening the show is Druss, a founding member of Salford-based band Gnod and the Tesla Tapes/Ono Tesla labels, whose solo productions cross into dark electronic territory with a caustic atmosphere. Usually partnered up with fellow Gnod bod Dwellings, for this show he will go solo armed with analogue synths and trusted battered sax.
This show is a co-promotion with DHP.
Buy tickets now. Tickets are available from the bar, Common (both no booking fee), Piccadilly Records, Vinyl Exchange, Seetickets.com, WeGotTickets.com, Ticketline.co.uk and on 0871 220 0260.