Ben Frost @ Gorilla, Manchester, 14 November

With his searing sci-fi effort A U R O R A, Aussie-Icelandic electronic composer Ben Frost is aiming to take us to a laser-scorched future. There’s an otherworldly atmosphere around a misty Gorilla this Friday night, and after luring us in with soothing minimalism Frost opens with the brutally fast blast of Diphenyl Oxalate armed with a seizure-inducing strobe light, the type of intentionally terrifying experience that Frost has, eight albums in, made his own.

The mechanical influence of Frost’s cohorts Swans and Tim Hecker is clear as Frost toils at his workstation in a vest, letting drummer Greg Fox build the pulsing clanks of Secant before the song explodes with Terminator synths. Fox’s black metal pedigree lends itself to such relentlessness, with his unerringly precise rhythms impressive throughout and close to stealing the night. However, Frost’s reliance on inhuman practice prevents him from ever being immersive. Impaired by the sheer exhaustion of the strobe light and Frost blowing a piece of equipment mid-set, the concert never really gains a sense of shape as the processed noise often seems stuck on track, relying heavily on Fox to inject sudden purpose and heave him off the production line.

Frost’s set jerks awake when Híbakúsja’s sounds of a snoring beast surprisingly decline into distressed wheezing, a reminder of the vulnerability of Frost’s previous album By the Throat, which is largely missing here. A U R O R A highlight Nolan proves to be a haunting finale, its heartbeat thump and witch house twists reminiscent of a John Carpenter soundtrack where no one is safe. It goes to show any apocalyptic visionary: the future only fascinates if there are people around to be scared of it. [Chris Ogden]