in advance of new music from ben frost in 2017, bedroom community is excited to present the definitive recorded version of his 2013 opera and directorial stage debut, the wasp factory, based on the novel by the late iain banks.
setting his unwitting characters against the backdrop of vast, implacable forces of nature - storm, sea, fire, and even their own madness - frost reaches deep into his formidable arsenal to reveal an unexpected warmth, from the composer of electronic experiments like aurora and theory of machines. the focus here is on the live sound of the reykjavík sinfonia, recorded in abbey road’s studio ii and, for the first time, the human voice. he sets david pountney’s libretto to tuneful, even soulful vocal lines, an extraordinarily unreliable narrator describing scenes of extreme violence and horror in music of incongruous loveliness.
limited pressing on translucent vinyl.