Ben Frost & Francesco Fabris Vakning

More recently best regarded as soundtrack composer, Ben Frost here follows work with
interdisciplinary sound artist Francesco Fabris on the ‘Dark’ OST with a plunge into purest rock
music, as in the actual sound of molten material rising to the surface and solidifying. With an
impressionistic-artistic license also found in work by Chris Watson, Jana Winderen or Giuseppe
Ielasi, the duo uncompromisingly revel in the sounds of nature’s biting point, using various
production methods to make audible the sound of the earth beneath our feet in the process of
creation, on location at Fagradalsfjall, Reykjanes Peninsula Iceland.
Here’s label boss Lawrence English on the subject
“As stable as we might choose to think it is, this planet is anything but that. A paper thin crust,
the zone in which we find ourselves, and mostly concern ourselves with, exists as a modest veil
cloaking a dynamic seismic turbulence that is as powerful as it is unknowable. There are moments
though where ruptures occur. The pressure from within carves its way to, and through, the
surface of the planet simultaneously delivering destruction and virgin landscapes, as primordial
as any we might care to imagine. It is here, in these places, where we can literally see the living
planet, that geologic time is condensed and world building is made visible, and audible to us, in an
unrestrained and provocative detail.
These volcanic ruptures, such as those captured on Vakning by Francesco Fabris and Ben Frost,
speak to the very living geology of Earth. These recordings, captured at close range, exist at a
nexus where liquid rock becomes solid. They capture moments of transformation, of obliteration
and of creation, often all at once. These are recordings of a living, material planet, dynamic and
unrestrained.”