All the tracks work in this manner under Frost’s deft hands, wielding the synthetic against the recorded organic to reveal the dark cost of our destruction of the natural world.
A stark sonic document of the damage made by humanity
Broken Spectre is Ben Frost original score for Richard Mosse’s film of the same name. As Frost says on the album’s liner notes:
“Over the past 3 years, Richard Mosse, Trevor Tweeten and myself traversed the Amazon documenting its destruction. The results of that documentation would eventually become Richard’s new film Broken Spectre. During that period I witnessed fires so vast they blacked out the sun. I watched illegal-loggers fell 700 year-old trees, and heard the unnerving silence of the forest that followed. I saw mercury poisoning rivers, and vast swathes of forest decimated for the promise of a few flecks of gold by young miners illegally seeking their fortune in Indigenous territories. I recorded volunteer veterinarians treating third degree burns on the paws of an anesthetised Jaguar; injuries inflicted by emboldened ranchers seeking to produce more beef for export on the smoldering remains of her wetland home. All because ‘man shall have dominion.”
“This album is ultimately a document of failure.” ~Ben Frost
The tracks are a combination of field recordings from this journey and Frost’s manipulations in his studio. There’s a strange juxtaposition at work, though in light of Frost’s own liner notes, it’s both obvious and intentional. “Report From An Obscure Planet” opens the album with loud forest noises balanced against a hiss of white noise. “The Index” screams, throbs and pulses, obliterating the brief warble of jungle noise as it mimics humanity’s destruction of the natural world. “Love In A Colder Climate” is stark and cold, machine hisses and drones mixed with the rhythms and songs of Amazonian creatures overpowered by the noise. “The Burning World” opens with the haunting call of an avian creature before the sound of fires, pulsing synthetic drones and machines pave over it. “Passport to Eternity” is like the hold music in Hell, cold synth washes (or is it the wind winding and writhing over acres and acres of dead forests?) while synthetic pulses bleed and bleep like a drone searching for the last bit of life to squeeze out of the land.
All the tracks work in this manner under Frost’s deft hands, wielding the synthetic against the recorded organic to reveal the dark cost of our destruction of the natural world. In a post Bolsonaro world, the album remains relevant—a stark sonic document of the damage made by humanity and the long road ahead to right the balance lest civilizations go as dead and quiet as the forests.
Broken Spectre, made between 2018 and 2022, is a collaboration between photographer Richard Mosse, cinematographer Trevor Tweeten, and composer Ben Frost. The project was co-commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria, VIA Art Fund and the Westridge Foundation, and by Serpentine Galleries. Additional support provided by Collection SVPL and Jack Shainman Gallery.
Broken Spectre is available on The Vinyl Factory. [Bandcamp]
