Live Review: Ben Frost, Lawrence English

After slogging it out for 15 strong years local label Room 40 now enjoys its fair share of acclaim and a favourable degree of renown the world over.

Tonight is the first hometown gig in a series of events and releases scheduled in for the Room 40: 15 celebrations. The long-haul effort certainly warrants some celebratory happenings, and tonight's two sonic-exorcists are the perfect fit for the occasion; as is the stunning space of the Powerhouse's Rooftop Terrace. The sold out room is charged with a splendid ambience and buzzing with an anticipatory energy.

Fittingly, Room 40 owner Lawrence English is up first to pop the cork and fill the space with his special blend of sonic-liquid.

The initial sounds are of subtle waves gently crashing upon a shoreline. It is as if the shore becomes the body and the line both the threshold that is consciousness between body and mind, and the threshold between self and other. The use of this auditory allegory could easily come across as a little trite. In this context, however, it is a minor masterstroke on English's behalf. Rather than mere allegory, English's technique is to use it as a kind of phenomenological device, as the current of the retreating wave draws the conscious mind-body beyond its threshold into the other space the sound inhabits; i.e., the space of the room. And from here on in it's quite the experience. Vibrations move across the skin and sweet melodies slither around the space, there exact origin and path cloaked in the density of the soundscapes. At one point a colossal cacophony builds to a grand state only to have its mass suddenly sucked into oblivion. Through all the peaks and valleys there is a fluid consistency that binds it together into a very cohesive work. With the absence of percussive intrusions, movement is reduced to a slow, contemplative pacing. At times this blurs the distinct boundaries between present experience and proximate memory, and it becomes all the more seductive for doing so. After setting expectations so high with last year's stunning Wilderness Of Mirrors, it's good to know that English can carry through in the live setting. He dons a black cowboy-esque hat upon the set’s conclusion and steps forward to express a sincere gratitude, providing the ever-characteristic, personal touch which makes grass-roots labels like Room 40 feel all the more tangible and valuable in today's musical climate of virtual ubiquity.

Label alumni, Ben Frost is perhaps the most successful among the artists to ever appear on the Room 40 roster, so it's no real surprise to see him in the headline slot this evening.

And rightly so, whether he's scoring soundtracks, collaborating with Richard Mosse on The Enclave, an exquisite multi-channel audio-visual installation that is among the most powerful artworks in recent history, or expanding his own catalogue (to name but a few of his many efforts of late), Frost demonstrates a frighteningly intense work ethic. Tonight's set draws from his most recent long-player, 2014's striking A U R O R A. While there is an overt sense of theatrics (a facet that perhaps gains him more criticism than is warranted) which sets his performance apart from English, the character and form of his own compositions is of great contrast from the outset. Opting for a more abrasive aesthetic, Frost's is a dense constellation of discordance that transverses a dynamic range of sounds in pursuit of affect. Sonic sensations haunt both viscera and skin one moment, and in the next they fall back into a veiled malaise of sound that aims its terror, and curiosity, back toward the ears and mind. Along with an exploitation of atypical rhythms of percussive assault, Frost constantly jerks the listener between shifting modes of experience as they dragged over the embryo of a stark future-terrain.

Cheers Room 40! Here's to another 15 years, and beyond...