The artist’s visuals meet the emphatic nature of the musician’s expressive track

Last month, musician, composer and recording artist Ben Frost blanketed listeners with the experimental textures of Scope Neglect, a complex, compelling work of art—and his first full-length studio album since 2017’s The Centre Cannot Hold. Frost heralded his new album release earlier this year with “The River of Light and Radiation,” an eager, expressive single that acts as a guide into the soundscapes of the Australia-born, Iceland-based artist. Today, the layer track receives a cinematic accompaniment by NYC-based visual artist Jason Akira Somma. Akira Somma’s film meets the emphatic nature of Frost’s music as their art forms weave together.

Akira Somma’s visuals are born from a blend of styles in flux. “Whilst developing the material I thought about the ‘river of light’ in the history of the moving image, hence the layering of film, analog and digital so that it has that entire history within itself,” he tells COOL HUNTING. His process also references Frost’s title, a concept of insensitivity rooted in cognitive bias. “The film I used is from film rolls that expired many decades ago, the same film made from the minerals stolen from Native American land, nodding to album title Scope Neglect,” the artist adds.

A fan of Akira Somma and his approach to art-making, Frost approached him to make the film, “because of his unique grip on texture and movement within the video sphere; which interestingly stems from his choreographic background,” the musician explains. “That’s combined with the blurred lines he walks between the digital and physical media, embracing the restrictions and idiosyncratic nature of closed systems—all of which resonates with me—and speaks strongly to this music and the album as a whole. The film feels like it’s collapsing in on itself. I think it’s extraordinary.”

Frost is no stranger to extraordinary collaborations. Last year, we were immersed in his sonic contribution to artist Richard Mosse’s deeply captivating 74-minute film on the degradation of the Amazon, Broken Spectre, which was presented on a 70-foot-long screen at The Momentary (where we also fell in love with Frost’s first-ever physical sculpture, a twisting tower of speakers) The piece is so powerful that we revisited it at the opening of Jack Shainman’s sprawling new space at 46 Lafayette Street in Tribeca. With all of this in mind, we are eager to see what Frost does next.