Bedroom Community

A U R O R A (or Aurora) is thew 2014 album by Ben Frost. This Japanese pressing released by Traffic Inc./Bedroom Community/Mute features one bonus track.

When screams draw Sylvia (Isabelle Huppert) to the bedroom window of her boyfriend's apartment, she's shocked to see a red-haired man attacking a woman. Unable to unlatch the window, she calls for her boyfriend, Terry Lambert (Steve Guttenberg), but by the time Terry joins her, the attacker has fled…

Blending the current trend for all things noisy with something altogether more 'composed' we end up with a curious concoction of Cliff Martinez and Wolf Eyes, stopping at planet Badalamenti for a strong cup of Joe ("black like midnight on a moonless night"). Frost's primary influence (and sound source…) for the album was Michael Gira's seminal noise-rock band Swans, an influence which bubbles majestically on the album's central piece, cunningly titled 'We Love You Michael Gira'. The track starts simply enough; shifting, moody synthesized tones sitting eerily next to shivering waves of guitar noise before both give way to the sort of glacial blip-work that would make Mika Vainio jealous, and then it hits you; chunks of percussive noise that enter the sound-field like a serial killer bursting into the family home, gritty and abrasive, raw and untamed. The Swans factor isn't lost in this track, it's something that needs to be played so loud that it almost hurts the eardrums for full, visceral effect and proves as if proof be needed that Ben Frost is a rare producer who really knows how to use the loud as it should be used.

Death nestles like a sweet creature at the heart of Holy Waters, the highly anticipated follow-up to 2021’s In Praise of Shadows, set for release this Autumn via Blue Flowers. It’s less a morbid study in mortality, more a chronicle of the graciousness within each repeated cycle of life, death and rebirth, arriving eventually at a gentle affirmation to himself, to the listener, at the album’s close, to keep going, “don’t let the dark take you whole”. It’s the hope-tinged bleakness that gets you.

'We love Diy. On a Budget. - it has the best DIY and decorating hacks and tips ever! ' Kate and Kay Allinson, Pinch of Nom