Convergence and Rockfeedback announce a special Ben Frost Audio - Visual performance featuring Marcel Weber at Heaven, London on March 16. Australia-born, Iceland-based composer Ben Frost returns to Convergence with a colossal and compelling new live show featuring material from his highly anticipated new album, The Centre Cannot Hold which will be released today via Mute.

The Centre Cannot Hold was recorded over ten days by Steve Albini in Chicago. The music exists not in space, but in a space; it is a document of an event, of a room, and of the composer within it. It is music that is not fully controlled and appears to be anxiously, often violently competing against its creator. In collaborating with Albini, Frost chooses a new immediacy and raw directness. As an artist whose command of sound design lies at the heart of his practice, by placing himself primarily in the role of live performer and handing the studio recording process over to Albini, Frost continues pursuit of Theseus’ paradox; the question of whether a ship restored by replacing every single part remains the same ship.

Glenn Max, Artistic Director of Convergence says: “It was a turning point for us in 2014 when Ben Frost decided to place his  A U R O R A album-release performance within Convergence. His performance at Village Underground that Friday night - accompanied by two drummer/electronicists -- was riveting and a palpable sense of Convergence's identity was formed on that night. It’s a pleasure to welcome him back with his new special audio / visual presentation with Marcel Weber”

For this special outing, Ben Frost will be collaborating with the visual artist Marcel Weber who works with imagery, light and space. His performances and installations have been commissioned and featured by festivals such as CTM and Transmediale, Unsound and Mutek and he’s collaborated with artists including Clark, Kuedo and Kode9. 

Weber’s work is marked by a well-defined and distinctive aesthetic, using images that both resonate with and form a relationship to sound. Applying the musical language and its ability to cut to the heart of our emotional worlds to moving image, an uncommon and ethereal quality emerges, brought to life by his passion for experimental narratives. The outcome is a multi-layered experience communicated by dynamic imagery: a cosmos made out of textures and distortions, a magical experience of surreal moments, stimuli for the subconscious.

Convergence returns in 2018 for its fifth edition. Held annually in March, the event series has entertained & educated over 100,000 attendees across London since its inception. Through concerts, exhibitions and talks, Convergence celebrates the latest technological developments of digital culture, elucidating issues, developments and innovation across art and society.

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Convergence 2018 Shows

Friday 16 March

Ben Frost and Marcel Weber

Heaven

19:00 doors

Tickets

Produced by RFB in association with Convergence

Friday 9 & Saturday 10 March

John Cale (2018-1964): A Futurespective With the London Contemporary Orchestra

The Barbican

Produced by the Barbican in association with Convergence

The new EP, LCD from dream pop group Ummagma features contributions by Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins) on the track 'Lama' and Dean Garcia (Curve) who has reworked the title track and ‘Back to You’. The new EP from Canada’s Ummagma, which follows up their 'Winter Tale' maxi-single with 4AD dream pop pioneer A.R.Kane earlier this year, features four superb tracks of ethereal majesty and exquisite composition, including the new original title track ‘LCD’ and reworkings of Ummagma songs by not one, but two, legendary British musical figures.

The first is respected Cocteau Twins multi-instrumentalist Robin Guthrie, who offers a breathtaking remix of Ummagma 'Lama'. The other contribution comes from maverick electronic artist-producer Dean Garcia, who contributes two mixes to the EP. Garcia is famed as half of seminal British indie/alt-rock band Curve with iconic vocalist Toni Halliday and half of SPC ECO with Rose Berlin. His enveloping reworking of their track ‘Back to You’ and his unique mix of 'LCD' are two superb additions that round off a release that encompasses a wide spectrum of sonic sound and gorgeous textures.

“When listening to the original versions of these two songs, I wanted to make something that was an extension of the psyche n space mood that to me is the heart n soul of Ummagma,” explains Dean Garcia. “With the ‘LCD’ mix, it was a matter of going into the original stems and extracting the most trippy n spacey elements and expanding them into a different zone. ‘Back To You’ was more about enhancing the mood of the song as it stood, but with view to bring out its dark and foreboding nature. I enjoyed working on both mixes for different reasons, the sense of space and oddness within both mixes is the thing that glues it all together. File under Dark Psyche”

Ummagma is Shauna McLarnon, hailing from Canada, and Alexander Kretov, originally from Ukraine. Now based in Canada, Ummagma won the Alternative Eurovision on Amazing Radio, representing Ukraine among 23 countries. They have also received awards and charted in places as far-flung as Australia and the USA to Scotland and Russia. “I grew up listening to Cocteau Twins, Curve, and so many bands from the 4AD and Creation labels, and then later introduced them to my husband. He learned of them late, having been born in the USSR. We feel incredibly honoured that Robin Guthrie and Dean Garcia have shaped several of our tracks as they personally envision them,” says vocalist Shauna McLarnon.