Tristan Shone, the creative core of Author & Punisher, started the project in 2004, setting out to craft devices (machines) as a force multiplier. That he could control machines to trigger a myriad of sound objects (synths et al.) was not just heuristic but revolutionary. Shone’s mechanical engineering and art background functioned perfectly as a catalyst to his songwriter form. To date, Author & Punisher has seven lauded full-lengths and one EP, the latest of which is Krüller. Shone’s unconventional yet assiduous methods with music and machine have landed crucial collaborations with Perturbator’s James Kent, and Tool’s Danny Carey and Justin Chancellor, who appear on Krüller tracks “Misery” and “Centurion,” respectively.

Based out of Portland, OR, King Yosef is a multi-facet artist and producer with infused influences of hip-hop, hardcore punk, metal, industrial, and EBM.

While birthed in the late 1980s, it was in the 1990s that the ‘Industrial Metal’ genre came to full fruition with the likes of Godflesh, Ministry, Pitch Shifter, Fear Factory, Front Line Assembly and even Nine Inch Nails carving out (or in some cases sampling) metal inspired riffing over a backbone of electronic malevolence and brutal machine driven percussion. In that tradition Black Magnet offer the haunted pummeling synthesis that is ‘Hallucination Scene’. From the initial battering of opener ‘Divination Equipment’ it’s clear Black Magnet play HEAVY guitar focused music with equal devotion to Industrial rhythms and electronic machine thunder. Throughout the punishing lurch a dark melodic sense throbs with uniform attention paid to the club floor as much as the mosh pit. All the while Black Magnet progenitor James Hammontree guides the hallucinatory torment and ecstasy with his acerbic delivery. The sonic magnitude of Industrial Metal and post-punk muscularity, heavy synth textures and rhythmic militance imbue ‘Hallucination Scene’ with a frenetic pulse acutely attuned to the head on collision of alternate dystopian timelines that is 2020.

Wretched Blessing is a band formed in Chicago by KV and RA in 2023 as a close and fully collaborative duo. It is an intentional and unrestrained effort to explore the vast spectrum of metal, punk, and experimental music without microgenre commitments.