Behind the Masks: Author & Punisher Details His New Gadgets

Author & Punisher has been taking his myriad home-crafted musical machines on the road for a couple of years now, so there’s a good chance you’ve gotten to see him (Tristan Shone) live: maybe on tour with Phil Anselmo last year, maybe on one of his many other cross-country treks. But this you probably haven’t seen just yet, because very few have: a trio of “voice-modulating masks.” When I saw Author & Punisher about a year ago at The Acheron in Brooklyn I’m pretty sure he had a headset on with a customer-service / Madonna-style mini-mic jutting out in front of his mouth, but his new gadgetry takes the whole Mechanized Man thing to the next level! Like everything else in his arsenal, he constructed the masks himself.

Wired takes us behind the scenes of Shone’s new getup. There’s a photo gallery with close-ups and descriptions of all three masks, as well as a fifteen-minute video in which he gives them all a whirl and explains the inspiration behind and creation of each. Check that out below.