Author & Punisher

Author & Punisher, the project led by American engineer and sound artist Tristan Shone, sits at the intersection of industrial metal, slow doom and noisy electronic music. Trained in the sciences and visual arts, Shone builds massive machines and performance interfaces for Author & Punisher that shape how rhythms, textures and filtered vocals are produced, giving the project a mechanical, repetitive and highly physical aesthetic. After self-released early recordings, Author & Punisher gained attention with the album Ursus Americanus in 2012, followed by Women & Children in 2013 and Melk En Honing in 2015, which involved Philip H. Anselmo in production. Author & Punisher’s place in the international metal and experimental scenes was reinforced by Beastland in 2018 on Relapse Records—marked by a more compact sound—and by Krüller in 2022, where the project introduced more melodic elements while retaining the slow, heavy tension that characterizes Tristan Shone’s work both in studio and on stage.