Anathematization Of The World Is Not An Adequate Response to the World
(Chocolate Monk - choc.457) 2xCDR $9.10 (Out-of-stock)
Emphatically corporeal and just as human as a public school math teacher, reaching out with open arms, filling up a large space with a manifestation of expanding joy. With contributions from Richard Youngs, Pete Hope, Jesse Kudler, Le Quan Ninh, Jason Talbot and Frans de Waard. Edition of 60
Bond Inlets
(Intransitive - INT030) CD $13.00
Ten years after Stelzer’s debut CD, Stone Blind (Intransitive, 1997), Bond Inlets dissects the source sounds of that work and filters it through the lens of the interceding decade in order to build a piece that more accurately reflects what his intentions were then and what his aesthetic is today. His first widely available solo cassette-tape composition, Bond Inlets is a subtly emotional work of foreground drone that beats its head against the plastic walls of cassette-tape technology, laying bare the physicality of the process of its creation. The dying motors of cassette players, tape-saturated percussion, and blown-out condenser-mic wail mix with elements of new live improvisations and local field recordings. There is an implacable melancholy to Bond Inlets, with oceans full of no-fidelity murk, and evocative hiss, and fragments of distant melodies that surface only to be subsumed again into the grime.
Exactly What You Lost
(Intransitive - INT028) CD $13.50
Seht is one of the post-Corpus Hermeticum bands whose peers are Birchville Cat Motel, Peter Wright, A.M., and folks like that. Stephen Clover and Boston artist Howard Stelzer first swapped recordings from their respective locales -- cars going by, planes overhead, birds in the bushes, just humdrum suburban stuff. Next, the recording of the NZ birds were played in Boston’s trees and re-recorded as the local birds sang along with the foreign tweets. Likewise, tapes of Boston cars going by were mixed with NZ cars going by. After it was all processed, scrambled and reassembled, it wound up having a certain melancholy feel. A cassette-blurp mess straightens out steadily until it’s just a flat line and the tap tap tap of a dying tape deck motor. A party record, basically.
ANASTASIS GRIVAS / NICOLAS MALEVITSIS / VIC RAWLINGS / HOWARD STELZER / JASON TALBOT / THEODORE ZIOTOS
Howard Stelzer / Jason Talbot / Vic Rawlings vs. Anastasis Grivas / Theodore Zioutos / Nicolas Malevitsis
(Editions Zero) Used CDR $5.00
Twenty-four minutes each by two different trios: Howard Stelzer (tape), Jason Talbot (turntable), and Vic Rawlings (cello and circuit-bent electronics); and Anastasis Grivas (prepared bowed guitar), Theodore Zioutos (electronics), and Nicolas Malevitsis (amplified objects). Recorded 2000 and 2001. Edition of 140
Shaking Off The Metaphors (Suburban Observances Volume 1)
(Chocolate Monk - choc.527) CDR $8.00
Sounds collected over many years, known very well to Stelzer, possibly so well he wasn’t truly hearing them any more. The first in a series of six volumes of collections of tracks to have passed through the hands of others and then back to the master incorporates processing by Theo Gowans (Territorial Gobbing), Andrew Zukerman (Fleshtone Aura), Theresa Smith (DeTrop), France Jobin, Ross Scott-Buccleuch (Diurnal Burdens), Frans de Waard (Modelbau), Joe Murray (Posset) and Stuart Chalmers. Tori Kuso sings on one track. Edition of 60
The Case Against
(Monotype) Used CD $5.00
The big master of tape manipulation builds a few pieces around a feeling of sound deterioration and landscapes falling apart.
NEIL CAMPBELL / HOWARD STELZER
Their Crowning Achievement
(Chocolate Monk - choc.480) CDR $6.50 (Out-of-stock)
Stelzer got the ball rolling on this old-school transatlantic collab with the sounds of kids playing, bass guitar, and dozens upon dozens of layered cassette tapes played outdoors and in hallways — a pile of stuff from unrelated or subconsciously-related sources, basically, hung together by crossed fingers and willpower, to which Campbell, in the wilds of West Yorkshire, added electronics, guitar and percussion. The resulting near-hour-long piece is a Rorschach rumble that keeps your gravy wet for the forseeable. Edition of 60
INSECT FACTORY / HOWARD STELZER
Title One
(Chocolate Monk - CHOC.359) CDR $8.00 (Out-of-stock)
Massachusetts tape crud maestro gets into a heady hoo-ha with processed guitar gonk Jeff Barsky. Together they excrete over 40 minutes of slow-moving electric trickle for your tickle spot. This foggy acid test hints at something unsavory under the floorboards. Those in need of a head filter look no further. Numbered edition of 60
Tomorrow No One Will Be Safe
(PacRec) Used CD $4.00
“Jazzkammer’s ‘Requiem for Officer Bobby Barker’ begins nearly silent, with small, creaking sounds that evoke the minimalism of AMM. As the pair gradually distributes metallic clangs, morse-code-like blips, and filtered static, their swelling mix becomes like a wordless shortwave radio conversation. That the piece ends with a noisy maelstrom might be predictable, but it’s the way Jazzkammer gets there — building noise through patient, organic construction — that’s the surprise. Stelzer follows with the stranger ‘Last Night at BLD’ which doesn’t build so much as shoot all over the place without any obvious meshing or melding. Springy twangs, warping scratches, and the sound of tape rolling over playheads all create a cartoon soundtrack without the music. On the collaborative, album-ending title track, Stelzer’s tape warps chime in immediately, tempered by Jazzkammer’s low guitar rumbles and electronic slashes. Loops of noise provide rhythm here and there, but the main attraction is the connective tissue that the three use to string their noises into arcs.” From 2004
FRANS DE WAARD / HOWARD STELZER
Torn Tongue
(Absurd) Used CD $10.00
The recorded voice of Kelly Sams manipulated by computer and effects in a dense six-track collage. Packaged in a 6.75-inch round, three-panel cardboard cover. Edition of 160
THE CHERRY POINT / HOWARD STELZER
Untitled
(Troniks) Used LP $6.00 (Out-of-stock)
The duo’s second collaboration uses source sounds by Blankenship, a full-on 100-mph fury carefully atomized and reassembled by Stelzer, who leaves plenty of empty space, a nuclear device draped in lovely gauze. Edition of 161 copies. Paste-on jacket.