Stelzer, Howard – “Narrow Escape” – [Obsolete Units]

lexi glass   6/4/2019   A Library, CD

Howard Stelzer is a sound artist from Massachusetts who works with cassettes as his instrument, both in his solo work (here) and his collaborations with Campbell Kneale, Frans de Waard, The Cherry Point, and others. This 2014 CDR release from Obsolete Units holds a single 54-minute work. During the first half of the piece, layers of recorded hums, buzzes, and echoes cast the dimensions of a vast interior space. Halfway through, a metallic rumbling emerges, and with it the realization that this space has only one exit, and that gap is slowly, mechanically, fastening closed. Air and light rushes out with a high frequency roar, the space seals shut. There’s nothing left to do but fumble through the void to hit the eject button.