Although Shear generally prefers to work alone, there have been some collaborations with other artists.
The first of these was very
early on in A23's existence. In 1995, Shear was asked to provide vocals for
a few tracks for Anthony Schonek's skElEtOn kEy project. skElEtOn kEy's music
is difficult to describe, but is a mixture of dark ambient sounds with the clangorous
din of struck metal and various bits of industrial machinery (Schonek worked
in the auto industry and made his own samples of the assembly line...). The
vocals on these tracks were often treated heavily and were a bit more experimental
in nature than those in A23. Schonek also contributed the lyrics, which are
again different than the typical A23 track. If you can find a copy of the "Construction
No. 009" compilation from Arts Industria Records (it's long out of print),
you can hear the collaboration on the skElEtOn kEy track "speakeasy.vox"
Later, in 1997, Shear wrote the lyrics and did the vocals for a track by Manhole
Vortex, a project of Paul Seegers and Kevin Choby who many know as A23's live
keyboardist and drummer respectively. The track, entitled "Realm of the
Senses" was a study of man's constant quest to escape reality through technology.
The track was done via mail, since Shear and his bandmates lived halfway across
the country from one another. Unfortunately, a miscommunication lead to the
vocals being placed in the wrong places on the song, thus throwing off the timing.
You can hear the track on Manhole Vortex's debut CD "Agents of Goldstein" on Arts Industria Records if you can find a copy of it - it's also out of print.
That same year, Shear's
good friend Scott Sturgis (Pain Station/Converter) asked him to write lyrics
for a song on his album "Disjointed" (COP Intl). The result was "Grovel" - a story of revenge set to seething, heavy beats.
Shear's next collaboration wouldn't come for some time. Around 2001 or so, he
provided lyrics and vocals to DJ Ram's Virtual Server project. This track has
yet to be released, but will be part of an upcoming album, to be announced.
It wasn't much longer after that that Shear's old labelmate Alex Matheu (Negative
Format) approached him about providing lyrics and vocals for his new Parallel
Project. The concept of Parallel Project is similar to Virtual Server... One
person creates the music (in this case Mr. Matheu), and then have other various
singers from the scene provide the vocals and lyrics. The track, "Explicit"
was released both as an album ("Fusion" on Sector 9 Studios) and a
single ("Explicit" on Out-Of-Line Records).