Ben Frost

Though the influence of minimal electronic musicians and 20th-century composers winds through the oeuvre of Australia-born, Iceland-based sound artist Ben Frost like veins, he’ll overwhelm you long before you have the chance to ponder those strains: Using a processed guitar, a piano, a system of circuits and the PA of whatever club he’s working in, pushed just to the point of not breaking, Frost renders kinetic industrial classicism that’s mesmerizing, menacing and—at best—entirely consuming.

Last year’s By the Throat is, paradoxically, a terrifying triumph. Mixing samples from recordings of howling wolves and double-bass blast beats from heavy metal bands with sheets of electronics and steady-handed piano triads, By the Throat glows as it growls, whisking you away in intimidating arms. Frost’s international breakthrough, 2007’s Theory of Machines, established him as an inclusive electronic musician with a strong sense for narrative, but By the Throat showed he was capable of a rare sort of synesthesia—using music not only to score something on the screen, but to become the projector casting the light onto the mind’s eye. Just don’t blink.

Frost is an enthusiastic collaborator: He’s worked with Amiina, the long-time string quartet behind fellow Icelanders Sigur Rós, and rigorous music explorer Oren Ambarchi. He’s been commissioned to remix Björk, and this spring, he’ll tour Europe with an ensemble that includes American folk caretaker Sam Amidon and compsoer Nico Muhly, a longtime employee of Philip Glass who, in the past several years, has become the haute couture arranger for indie rock stars like Grizzly Bear, Antony & the Johnsons and Jónsi Birgisson. Frost has done several scores for modern dance pieces, as well as multiple large-scale, high-concept multimedia presentations. 

He’ll fly in from Europe to perform solo at Hopscotch. —Grayson Currin