Author & Punisher – “Women & Children” (Stereogum Premiere)

Author And Punisher - Women And Children

Author & Punisher – “Women & Children” (Stereogum Premiere)

Author And Punisher - Women And Children

Author & Punisher — aka San Diego scientist/sculptor/ex-robotics major Tristan Shone — is probably best known for making music with immense custom-designed speakers and machines. But focusing on that aspect of the man’s art threatens to detract from his ability to craft music. Shone’s apocalyptic noise blends elements of industrial, doom, and dubstep, and contorts that mass into some chilling, unrecognizable form. His new album, Women & Children, follows 2012 breakthrough Ursus Americanus, and largely improves upon it. We’ve got the album opener/title track for you today, and it’s fantastic: It opens with the sound of electronic cicadas chirping over an empty dystopia, and soon, the low end (synths? bass?) comes to the surface, along with Shone’s distant, distorted vocals. When the track finally explodes — and especially when it moves into its massive final two minutes — it sounds like an amped-up version of El-P’s most discomfiting and narcotic beats, like an invasion or a riot (giving its title an especially morbid undertone). It’s pretty goddamn incredible and I highly recommend you listen.

Women & Children is out 6/11 via Seventh Rule.

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