Six Reader writers fan out to consider Author & Punisher, Ciara, and more
by Miles Raymer, Bill Meyer, Kevin Warwick, Peter Margasak, Leor Galil and Luca Cimarusti
Author & Punisher, Women & Children (Seventh Rule) Industrial music is having a bit of a moment right now, thanks to the gothier arm of the 90s revivalist movement and to Kanye's booming digital meltdown, Yeezus, which has more in common with Skinny Puppy than with the new Jay Z. But even so, I don't see the industrial-tinged metal racket of Author & Punisher finding much of a mainstream audience as a result. The project of sculptor and engineer Tristan Shone, who produces his music with a laptop and a nest of custom-built machines that looks like something out of the Terminator movies' dystopian future, Author & Punisher recently released its second full-length, an unforgivingly grim pileup of sludgy doom grooves and aggressively tweaked electronics that paints a vivid picture of an extremely unpleasant worldview.…[ Read more ]