Do you remember back in the day when the word “industrial” as a descriptive term for music was actually meant literally? Back before any snotty little kid with a drum machine could just dial up some digital distortion in Garageband, puke out some techno dance tracks onto his MacBook, and think he’s the next Trent Reznor?
Meet Tristan Shone, the San Diegan mechanical engineer who is otherwise known as Author & Punisher. In case you hadn’t guessed, those little doodads and whatsits he’s holding in the photo above are not some newfangled kind of XBox controllers or something. No, Tristan has manufactured himself a virtual army of mechanical and robotic devices whose sole purpose is to make a cacophony of industrial noises. Literally.
With a few releases already under his utility toolbelt, this one-man noise factory has got a brand new album Ursus Americanus slated to be released by Seventh Rule Recordings on 24 April, 2012. However, as the kind folks at Catharsis PR have brought to my attention, you can have the opportunity to catch a sneak peek at a couple tracks from that record right now!
Valley of Steel 