Frost Children. hang out with the hottest group on the internet
Excerpted from the Winter 2022 issue of Dazed. You can purchase a copy of our latest issue here
St. Louis, Missouri is home to the longest shopping mall in the world. Located off Route 370, it was once a beacon of commerce, a multilevel town of fast food and fashion chains that served as an antidote to the drabness of suburban life. But like thousands of malls across the country, decades of economic decline forced it to close in 2019. “There was nothing to do,” says Angel Prost, “so we stayed at home.” She’s referring to Lulu, her younger sibling and the other half of pop duo Frost Children. They grew up together in St. Louis, nicknamed by locals as the trading post of Missouri. But while other kids were roaming the mall, the Frost Children found a new, spiritual home: the Internet.
Speaking via Zoom from their shared apartment in Ridgewood, Queens – “We use Lulu’s room as a studio,” they say – the couple is part of a new group of artists emerging from the downtown New York scene. Emerging from the pandemic, these extremely online creatives and tastemakers span the worlds of fashion, art, and media, with intelligent internet personalities spanning Substacks, podcasts, and meme accounts. “I’m definitely a hyper-online person,” Angel says. “I’m really posting my story on Instagram a lot these days. it’s almost like I’m living out my every thought in a journal. To be honest, I don’t see any problem in it.” His TikTok is also an extension of these daily musings, combined with the kind of grounded and ironic musings that flourish on the Internet. “These are real thoughts that I’m having, it’s not like I’m being tainted and my brain is dying from hyperloading. It’s just a medium, like writing in a journal, but it’s going online.”
Online and IRL, the downtown scene isn’t defined by one style or sound, but rather encompasses an entire umbrella of art, ideas, and bands. With the micro-neighborhood of Dimes Square at its center, there is a self-sustaining ecosystem of artists willing to collaborate. Angel recalls meeting Blake Ortiz-Goldberg AKA Blaketheman1000, the rapper behind the song “Dean Kissick,” when she read one of his articles in a local scene paper. Drunken canal. Ortiz-Goldberg now leads the group, holding weekly meetings at Ming’s Cafe on Canal Street. “There’s an infinite number of scenes here: the world of Dare-Strange-Ranger-Porches, the more delirious of Rash-Club-Cringe-Heaven DJ,” he says. “We operate in two worlds at the same time. And they’re really happening right now.”
“The reference art cycle is growing so fast in terms of music” – Angel
Balancing the underground electronic scene and emerging indie renaissance, Frost Children’s music is hard to pin down. It’s a terminally online, culture-influenced remix sound that would have been labeled hyperpop in 2020, but has since morphed into a fluid style that spans everything from synth pop to punk rock and hardstyle. “Lately, when we’ve been asked what kind of music we make, we just say it’s a secret,” Angel says, “but other times we’ll just say we’re emerging pop artists.” Equally inspired by golden age YouTube and 00s kids TV shows iCarly:their tracks are imbued with the playful energy of Web 1.0, with glitchy sound bites and leaked YouTube samples that transport the listener into disorienting states of digital mayhem.
“The reference art cycle is growing so fast in terms of music,” says Angel. “I saw a tweet that said: who will do the hyperpop revival? [Like] “Wow, this beat is so hyperpop in 2020.” We all know what that means and what it sounds like. But 15 years ago we would have said this song is like three years ago. You’d have to be really high up on the pop production iceberg to know what that meant. I’m curious to see what happens when it collides with itself.”
The couple is already known for their intense live shows. it’s not uncommon to see them strutting around the stage with a giant smiley face, paper mache Mesaryth stars (the official Frost Children emblem) or in inflatable SpongeBob suits and rapping each other. as part of their side project, YourBoySponge. “I think our approach is that when you’re given an opportunity to do something, do it to the best of your ability,” Angel says. This is true of the pair’s stage presence, which sounds more like a big room DJ than a new pop act. They attribute this to watching EDM shows like UKF Dubstep and Ultra Miami. “Angel was Deadmau5 and I was Skrillex,” Lulu says with a smile. Angel adds: “Those shows have influenced our style, how we perform, like we’re on that stage, even if it’s a room of 200 people, and we don’t necessarily have that kind of sound.”
Despite the fact that we are talking through a computer screen, the conversation does not seem awkward – it’s no different than talking to a regular internet friend. “Our stage persona is something in our head that we can turn on and off at any time,” says Lulu. Together, they have an almost hive-mind-like relationship, the kind that can only exist when being close siblings. “We grew up together, we live together, we make music together, we perform together, we go on tour together. It’s always cold,” says Angel. “But we had competing YouTube channels at one point.”
Frost Children have played some of their formative shows in quarantine, DJing at Zoom nights such as Los Angeles-based Subculture, and their hyper-internet music is paired with a distinct URL aesthetic designed to smash and to capture the attention of even the smoothest minds. . But creating music that reflects the frenetic pace of the Internet is no easy feat. Trends move faster than memes and fall prey to perpetual scrolling. This is something the pair are looking to combat with their upcoming releases, SPEED RUN and: LIVING ROOM. “It’s the arc of an artist’s lifetime, but compacted into two quick albums,” says Lulu, who says: SPEED RUN is the album “the-pop-artist-big-ego-paparazzi” and LIVING ROOM is his “ego-death-lifestyle-shifted-up” companion.
That night, Frost Children play a show at Zeitgeisty’s Perfectly Imperfect newsletter two-year anniversary party, alongside a cast of downtown faces including indie favorites The Hellp and PC Music’s umru. The pair’s set grows at lightning speed, with a sensory overload of meme ideas and catchy melodies that dig deep into your skull. “The life project of music creates so many different vibrations, arcs and phases in such a short time that it’s almost incomprehensible,” says Angell. “It’s a really cool way to be a performing artist in the post-Internet age.”
Hair by LUCAS WILSON at DAY ONE, Makeup by JANESSA PARE at THE TOGETHER COMPANY, Nails by ERIE HANDA FACULTY at Home, Photography Assistants PATRICK LINN, NICK GRENNON, Styling Assistant ASHLEY ZIELINSKI, Digital Cinematographer XIANGY.
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