Howard Stelzer

photo by Randy Yau, 2008

Howard Stelzer has been active as a composer and performer of electronic music since 1992. His visceral improvised music utilizes the qualities inherent to cassette tape and tape players; namely hiss, the roll of tape across play heads, the crackle of dirt caught inside old players, play speed altered manually by pressure from fingers applied to the tape’s reels. Stelzer’s work tends to employ space and silence as well as gritty low-fidelity noise, and is almost always centered on the physicality of live performance.

Stelzer is a member of The BSC, a large electro-acoustic orchestra led by sax player Bhob Rainey, and the group Skeletons Out, with Jay Sullivan. He also operates the Intransitive Recordings label for electro-acoustic and improvised music. and regularly hosts sound-art, electronic and improvised music concerts by visiting and regional artists in the Boston area, where he lives.

Selected Discography:

Skeletons Out / nmperign Split 7″ (Editions Zero, Greece) 2009

Strangled Pairs 10 CDr w/ Spykes (American Tapes, US) 2009

Go On CDr (Banned Productions, US) 2008

Skeletons Out In Remembrance of Me CD (Students of Decay, US) 2008

Bond Inlets CD (Intransitive Recordings, US) 2008

Exactly What You Lost CD w/Seht (Intransitive Recordings, US) 2007

Mincing Perfect Words 3″CDr (Chondritic Sound, US) 2007

Tomorrow No One Will Be Safe CD w/Jazzkammer (Troniks/PacRec, US) 2007

Zondag CD w/ Giuseppe Ielasi, Roel Meelkop, Frans de Waard (Port, Japan) 2007

Untitled LP w/The Cherry Point (Troniks, US) 2006

Night Life CD w/Giuseppe Ielasi (Korm Plastics, NL) 2005

Songs CD w/ Jason Talbot (Intransitive Recordings, US) 2003

The BSC Good CD (Grob, Germany) 2003

Four Sides 2×7″ w/Jason Talbot, (CIP, US) 2003

The Idea of Northeast LP w/ Jason Talbot & Mike Bullock (Intransitive, US) 2001