Description
Label Review.
2017 album.
Our Overview.
‘The Centre Cannot Hold’ was recorded over ten days by Steve Albini in Chicago and is his second album for Mute Records following the critically acclaimed ‘Aurora’ (2014). Australian born Frost who lives in Iceland has been releasing records since 2001 and although largely composes for TV and film, this new album is a non-soundtrack affair.
The music exists not in space, but in a space; it is a document of an event, of a room, and of the composer within it. It is music that is not fully controlled and appears to be anxiously, often violently competing against its creator. It’s an exercise in limitation and chromatic saturation, ‘The Centre Cannot Hold’ is an attempt at transcribing a spectrum of glowing ultramarine into sound.
Ben Frost preceded the album with ‘Threshold Of Faith’, a seven-track 12” and digital EP. Pitchfork describe the track title track as “moving from heroic vistas into a garbled, snow-blinded melee. Distant choral pads, a glistening upper-register sheen, submerged piano, and groaning harmonies all stack up into a geologic crescendo that extends into infinity” while The 405 describe the EP as “scorching and beautiful”.