Stelzer/Murray
Connector
Cassette / Digital // HMS045
Release Date: November 17, 2017
https://soundcloud.com/helen-scarsdale/stelzermurray-three
http://www.helenscarsdale.com/published/stelzermurray-connector.htm
Stelzer/Murray is the duo of Brendan Murray and Howard Stelzer, two stalwarts of the Boston noise / experimental scene over the past two decades. Both artists have long been friends and both artists have never shied away from collaborating with avant-garde musicians hither and yon. Yet, this marks their first collaborative work together. Better late than never, we say.
Stelzer brings to the table an array of mangled and partially demagnetized tape; and Murray brings his knack for compacted harmonics, obfuscated field recordings, and long-view compositional strategies. An irradiated, almost Kirlian glow permeates Connector through the duo's slow accretions and erosions amidst the soaring crescendos of compacted tone and vacant shadows of mechanical thrum. On occasion, rasping saw tooth frequencies and oblique synth-noise phrases stridently pop in a clinical opposition against the field of hiss. Screaming cascades from ice storms. Tape symphonies from urban blight. Life-support machines at the point of obsolescence.
In describing the process of building this album, Stelzer reflected, "When you've known someone for this long, the act of collaboration is like conversation over dinner; you don't fuss over it or worry about it; it's stress free, even instinctual like exhaling."
Good things come to those who wait.
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