Howard Stelzer

Howard Stelzer
Birth name Howard Stelzer
Born November 23, 1974
Belle Harbor, New York, Long Island, New York, United States
Genres Musique concrète, Electroacoustic music, Experimental music
Occupation(s) Composer, record producer, teacher
Instruments Tape recorder
Years active 1990–present
Labels Intransitive Recordings, RRRecords, Audiobot, Troniks, Chondritic Sound, Students of Decay, Crippled Intellect Productions, Korm Plastics, American Tapes, Port, Banned Productions, Middle James Co., Cardinal, Razors and Medicine, Banned Productions
Associated acts Stelzer & Talbot, The BSC, Ouest, Skeletons Out, TWIN
Website www.intransitiverecordings.com

Howard Stelzer (born 1974, in Belle Harbor, New York) is a composer of electronic music, whose work is made primarily from sounds generated by cassette tapes and tape players. In 1997, he founded the independent record label Intransitive Recordings, through which he published CDs and records of experimental music by artists such as Brume, Jason Lescalleet, John Hudak, Kyle Bobby Dunn, Nerve Net Noise, nmperign, Jim Haynes, Brendan Murray, Seht, Lethe, Kapotte Muziek, Lionel Marchetti, Roel Meelkop, C. Spencer Yeh, and many others.

Early Years

Stelzer grew up on Long Island, NY, before moving with his family to Boca Raton, FL when he was 12 years old. While in high school, Stelzer began making crude noise collages with cassette tapes and a simple home stereo system. His first concerts consisted of playing back these tapes while striking metal percussion instruments made from car parts and sheet metal scavenged from junk yards. After a few small-edition cassette tapes distributed for free to friends, Stelzer published his debut album, "Stone Blind", as a CD on his own Intransitive Recordings label in 1997. The album consisted of three related pieces, each roughly 20 minutes long, and made out of crudely spliced cassette tapes. Each track was recorded in a single take to one side of a 40-minute tape; a piece ended when the tape ran out.

After completing an undergraduate degree in English at the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1998, Stelzer moved to Boston, Massachusetts. In his new city, Stelzer came into contact with musicians working in the free improvisation idiom, such as nmperign, David Gross, and Vic Rawlings, and began using his cassette tapes as instruments for improvised collaborative performances.

Stelzer & Talbot

From 2000 until 2004, Stelzer performed in a duo with turntablist Jason Talbot. Their music was entirely improvised, though they attempted to create a sound the resembled studio-composed spliced tape. The duo toured extensively, performing at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in the Netherlands in 2003, Heaven Gallery in Chicago, Tonic in New York City, and around the US and Canada.

Compositions

After 2004, Stelzer performed less frequently, and concentrated instead on solo compositions and studio collaborations. One of these was Exactly What You Lost, a long-distance collaboration with New Zealand artist Stephen Clover, aka Seht. Stelzer's other collaborators have included Frans de Waard (Kapotte Muziek), Jazzkammer, Emil Beaulieau, Giuseppe Ielasi, Peter Wright, Antony Milton, nmperign, The Cherry Point, Jason Lescalleet, Joseph Hammer, Will Guthrie, Otomo Yoshihide, Jessica Rylan, Sawako, Ben Hall, AMK, John Olson (of Wolf Eyes), Skeletons Out (a duo with turntable and harmonium player Jay Sullivan) and Ouest (a trio with Sullivan and Brendan Murray).

Partial discography

References

    External links