Bedroom Community

Ben Frost doesn’t make empty threats. When he named his latest album By the Throat he meant it - this is a truly breathtaking album that holds the listener from start to finish. Frost explores the brutal end of the electronic spectrum but never at the expense of emotion. Soundscapes of piano, compressed beats and clicks, akin to the darkest of Efterklang’s output and Chris Adams’ (of Hood) Bracken project, are permeated by the eb and flow of white noise, evoking the danger and paranoia of a band of travellers crossing a barren landscape where wolves, literally, howl and snarl at their heel.

But the enormity of this sound, in part created by layer upon layer of voices, dissipates seamlessly to simple trumpet, distorted cello, and a reappearance of bewitching piano on some of the album’s best tracks: ‘Peter Venkman Part II’ and ‘Leo Needs a New Pair of Shoes’. Where those in the Stephen O’Malley school might beat us to a bloody pulp then bury us alive, Frost holds us close, tricking us into security then stabbing us from behind. Perhaps we should’ve seen it coming from an album that is full of musical and emotional nuance.

Katherine Godfrey