By Jase Walker
One of my absolute favourite smaller venues in Manchester, The Deaf Institute is hosting a rather bizarre act tonight, Author & Punisher, an act that friends of mine have described as a man wearing various metal instruments while blasting out grinding, inexorable noise. What a treat on a Tuesday night.
I’m surprised that Author & Punisher weren’t on the ÜK leg of Perturbator’s tour last year as they were on it for a vast majority of the dates in the EÜ. Along for the ride for this tour is Zetra who I’ve seen pop up quite a lot on various leftfield aligned music sites across 2023, so this should be an interesting night of unusual music!
The intro music for Zetra begins and it appears the venue’s forgotten to dim the lighting, which is a bit weird. Seems they’ve remembered finally, as the several screens at the front of the stage play a bizarre video with an unusual voiceover kicking off Zetra’s set. Admittedly with the corpse paint and spike bracers, I was expecting something a bit more black metal than what seems to be more along the lines of VNV Nation. The mix of dreamy synths, fuzzy guitars that also seem to be driving the bass via effects and dreamy vocals mixed with a visual element of mystery due to how dark it is makes for a pretty interesting show. The videos playing along with the set are a nice touch and reminds me a lot of how Nordic Giants approach their live shows as well.
I’m actually pretty fascinated by Zetra’s sound: this spacey synth sound juxtaposed against stoner rock sounding riffs mixed with shoegazey vocals is a bloody great mix. It’s really taken me by surprise but I suppose I did come here tonight for a bunch of unusual music and I’ve certainly got it, but it’s also great when a band like Zetra completely blindsides you in the process. Even kneeling toward each other in a pose during one particular interlude, love stage performance antics like that. A wonderfully bizarre yet engrossing act, and one I’ll no doubt see quite a fair bit over the course of this year (They’re supporting A.A. Williams as well!).
Author & Punisher eventually sets up his absolute monstrosity of a set up including his infamous gauntlet… thing. The guitarist on stage along with him seems to have had a far easier time by comparison! Sadly looks like we’ve got a false start as there’s some issues with the stage kit not quite working correctly which is a shame! A brief moment of fixing it and a triumphant fist in the air signals the proper start of the show. I genuinely didn’t know the gauntlet was used for doing the drum sounds, nor did I know that the grip seems to have button combinations on it that play different sounds depending on the combination, that’s awesome! The bass from this show is oppressive as well, it’s turning my legs into jelly in some parts as it resonates just at the right note and makes the floor shake.
I kinda suspected the light show to be pretty intense as the electronic music circles that Author & Punisher seem to reside in often lean heavily towards strobes and the like and that’s exactly what I got. It compliments the show fantastically well with its dark and gritty sound, synthesized and distorted vocals and overall terrifying atmosphere. I’m hypnotized by that gauntlet though, I absolutely adore how it delivers the oomph of the big drum sounds by using what is essentially a punching fist, brilliant. Every song has an almost inexorable march, some more lumbering than others but everyone is a brilliant display of fearsome power in its own right. There’s been a few mishaps here and there but to their credit they’ve been sorted out pretty quickly on the fly, they’ve not really caused much of an issue other than the vocals dropping out a few times which on the whole hasn’t impacted the show that much. Although I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone use a microphone… thing directly attached to their throat to create a bizarre noisy interlude!
Pretty damn interesting show on the whole and one of the reasons I’m happy to have a social circle with such diverse musical taste or I’d have missed these! Can definitely see why Perturbator and HEALTH had them on tour with them last year, shame they couldn’t have been on the UK leg, seeing them on a huge stage would have been great, not that this wasn’t anything short of fantastic.
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