Ben Frost is currently in the middle of a worldwide tour, heading to the UK next week (take a look at the dates below); not only that, but he’s putting out a new EP, V A R I A N T, featuring remixes of tracks from this year’s A U R O R A album. ‘Venter’ gets three new takes – from Evian Christ (give that a play at the foot of the piece), Dutch E Germ and HTRK – Kangding Ray remixes ‘No Sorrowing’ while Karl O’Connor, aka Downwards boss Regis, submits ‘Nolan’ to his ‘Self Medicating Edit’, and Mute have been kind enough to give us a first look at the decidedly psychotropic video for the track, directed by Trevor Tweeten, one of Frost’s collaborators on the AV installation The Enclave – have a watch above.
As you’d expect, ‘Nolan’ gets cast in a decidedly darker hue in Regis’ hands: the percussive uplift and flaring, corrosive synths driven down beneath restrained kick drum pummel and crackling electronic matter, giving way to a coda of plaintive strings. V A R I A N T‘s out on December 8 via Mute on limited edition vinyl and download; in the meantime, take a look at what Frost, Tweeten and their other Enclave collaborator, Richard Mosse, have been up to recently, documenting flight tests for the X-47B drone in the US, below:
NOVEMBER
Mon 10 – The Haunt, Brighton
Tue 11 – Thekla, Bristol
Wed 12 – Capsule, Birmingham
Thu 13 – St John at Hackney Church, London
Fri 14 – Gorilla, Manchester
Sat 15 – Howard Assembly Room at Opera North, Leeds