The Case Against, by Howard Stelzer

The Case Against

by Howard Stelzer

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Tom Rimshot This really truly is something else, in both a profound sense and an utterly alien one.

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	1.	Accumulated Background Radiation (Ver. 2) 16:19
	2.	Flight Path 05:49
	3.	The Last Scattering Surface 17:36
	4.	Rip It Up 02:58
	5.	Nightlight 05:02

about

Over the course of his new album’s five tracks (presented as a single piece in five parts), composer Howard Stelzer produces an evocative and highly visual piece of obliquely narrative sound theater sculpted from humble cassette tapes in the dead of a New England winter. The cover image of a desolate beached galleon (drawn by renowned comics artist Tony Millionaire) sets the tone for what follows: a steadily enveloping deep-water/deep-space dive into chilling depths/heights. From the gradually enveloping dread that rises from below in the album’s opening minutes to the full-spectrum melodic glory that returns listeners to solid ground an hour later, “The Case Against” is easily Stelzer’s most accessible and accomplished work to date.

Howard Stelzer has made music out of cassette tapes since 1997. From 1998 until 2012, he ran the Intransitive Recordings label, which published work by artists such as Nerve Net Noise, C. Spencer Yeh, Brume, Lethe and Failing Lights. Stelzer currently teaches middle school math and science in Lowell, MA, where he and his family live in a giant room behind a disused power station.

credits

released May 12, 2016

Cassette music composed and recorded by HS at the Hotel Amnesia, 2010 to 2014.

Cover art by Tony Millionaire.
Design by Mirt.

Published by Monotype Recordings, Poland.

"(Stelzer) calls it “cassette music”, and his approach to composing with these cronky oxide lengths of magnetic hue is very maximal, using intensive processing and editing to create incredibly rich and dense fields of solid grind." - Sound Projector

"One can put up the volume of this and feel the music as well as keep it down and enjoy it all the same. Massive drones are mixed with bird
sound, and wind against fences with a street parade; this is another excellent release by the master of cassette music." - Vital Weekly

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about

Howard Stelzer Massachusetts

Stelzer's music is assembled out of cassette tapes, tape machines, and a stubborn refusal to admit defeat. He & his family live on a small farm in rural MA. At night, he hunches over piles of plastic, wires & little boxes and makes this stuff. No one knows why.

"I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares." - Saul Bass ... more

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