Author & Punisher / KEN mode / El Moono @ The Bread Shed, Manchester, 14th August 2024

The last time I entered through the doors of the wonderfully named The Bread Shed, was to see one of the highlights of 2023, the stunningly brilliant Mutoid Man, but tonight was something completely different. I’m certainly having my musical experiences stretched this year by being introduced to bands I’ve never seen or heard before, and tonight was no exception.

Starting off the proceedings are El Moono, a four-piece genre bending band who released their debut album The Waking Sun earlier in the year. With all but one of their songs coming from that album, they have a loud, brash and abrasive style but incorporate a soft edge when required.

Songs like The Charm and Marionettes go down well with the crowd, as they are heavy but with plenty of melodies. With the Novation sampler adding wider range of sounds to their music, they go off on different levels. Forced To Smile, which was dedicated to the LBGTQ+ community, had a hardcore edge to it, before they end with the excellent Chains, which has a strong intro, lots of tempo changes and is a bit mad towards the end with some spaced-out sounds and screeching guitars.

‘Hello, we are KEN mode from Canada’ announces Jesse Matthewson, as the first of tonight’s co-headliners kick off with what can only be described as forty-five minutes of sheer and utter madness. I’m fairly green to KEN mode, so this was a whole new experience for me, and with the red lights adding more angry tendencies, they begin with the powerful A Love Letter which has one of my all-time favourite and somewhat poignant lyrics, ‘I’d like to congratulate you for buying into the exact same narrative as everyone else’.

They play at a breakneck speed with bassist Skot Hamilton like a maniac and Kathryn Kerr on sax and synths simply lost in a world of her own at times, its beautiful to watch. With the songs like The Shrike and Painless coming thick and fast, the energy they have is endless as they infuse metal, hardcore and noise so wonderfully well.

The highlight of their set for me was the stunning Lost Grip which has a bass sound so heavy that the unit I was leaning on was shaking throughout. Jesse continues his mean, intense stare as he spits out the lyrics ‘I don’t believe that you mean well’ and the keyboard is played elegantly over the haunting melody.

‘It’s been a while since we’ve been here, thanks for coming out’ and they begin the slow brooding introduction to final song No Gentle Art. It has a huge drum sound from Shane Matthewson, and when combined with the rumbling bass, it’s an audible delight. The singer seems in full KEN mode right now, eyes fixated, before they leave with ‘Thank you very God damn much’ ringing in our eyes.

The sizeable crowd is waiting in anticipation for one-mad band Tristan Shone, better known as Author & Punisher. With a bit of soldering to do on one of his drone machines, the mechanical engineer is now joined by guitarist Doug Sabolick, as Shone gives a thumbs up to the sound guy and the steady pace of Drone Carrying Dread fills the room, with flashing red, blue and white lights accompanying each drumbeat.

It’s compulsive viewing watching Shone in action as it was my first time and some of the sounds he creates from his home-made kit are just extraordinary. The dramatic Incinerator is a wonderful example of this, as it feels menacing and sinister, then we are treated to a simply stunning cover of Portishead’s Glory Box. I was mesmerised by this one, as it was like listening to a play unfolding for your listening pleasure, heightening your senses with each drum beat and guitar note. Breathtaking stuff.

One of the more enthralling parts of the evening is how Shone creates tension and narrative with his music. On Pharmicide and Motomami, his version of the Rosalía song, the noises take on some sort of alien like form, the accompanying vocal gets progressively more computerised as the drumming remains relentless and pounding. The added guitar riffs from Sabolick feel harsher than before and get people’s heads nodding.

The cacophony of sounds continues with big dirty riffs, almost prog like keys and haunting vocal throughout Disparate and the truly wonderful Maiden Star. The drone machines rumble with a killer noise for a ghostly performance of Misery before the night is wrapped up with the spoken word introduction over an industrial beat of Nihil Strength with Sabolick lifting his guitar high above his head. The metronomic beats cascade around the room, as the smiling faces walk towards the exit knowing that they’ve just witnessed something very special indeed.

Author & Punisher

KEN mode

El Moono

Scribed by: Matthew Williams
Photos by: Lee Edwards