Howard Stelzer — Invariably Falling, Into The Thickets Of Closure
The three different coloured CD’s come in an eight-panel digipak, which features a decidedly lacklustre & bland green layered/ meshed collage artwork that doesn’t really hint at the scope of the sounds with-in. Frankly it feels very clichéd noise/drone type artwork- which is a real pity/ missed opportunity- as I always count good artwork as a big plus in a over-all great release. Also, I’m afraid I found the releases title a tad pretentious too- which has never really been an issue in the past with Stelzer- anyway enough with the negatives- let us get the positives- the sounds with-in!.
For this release Stelzer has brought in a few guests on board- Windy Weber (Windy & Carl), Michael Anderson (Drekka), Stephen Clover (Seht), Peter Wright, Antony Milton, Peter Hope, Bill Ironfield, Elisabeth King, Sarah Hennies, Jeff Barsky (Insect Factory), Tom Smith (To Live & Shave in LA) and Audrey Chen- these all nicely added to the releases whole impact instead of diluting it; but it’s very much Stelzer baby- with his sound traits & sonic identity on display though-out.
Each of the tracks are named after a colour which is a nice idea, and these mostly work/ fit well. The whole thing kicks in surprisingly throbbing & almost grooving form with the just under four & a half minutes of "Teal"- here we find a blend of rapid thumb bass-line 'n' upfront skittering, with droning-to-simmer string tones & slightly buried ranty/yet quirky male vocals on top. As we move through the first disc we come to the soothing & mystical droning of “Cyan”- for this nine & bit minute track, we find a mix of eastern meditative drone, rising & hovering buried chants, and blunt & distant gong strikes - in the last quarter Stelzer cleverly pares things back to just wind like sweeps & distant eerier ringing tones. The final & longest track on disc one “Voilet”- opens with someone semi singing a line from Princes “When Birds Cry”- before dropping into an intriguing, cleverly layered, and subtle surreal sonic adventure that starts off been built around layers of bird field records, bee buzzers, cryptic knockings- as it develops Stelzer cleverly layering builds adding in more layers of interlocking bird twitter, tape reeling textures, back & forwards vocal flotsam & jetsam- ever so often he subtracts or adds new elements to create a most dizzy-yet- fascinating track.
Moving onto second disc and we go from the nearing five minutes of “Lilac” with spurting 'n' bubbling texturing- meeting dub reggae disco- which is topped off with wondering & surreal like crocky Oldman singing. The nearing eight minutes of “Mahogany” with its mix of urgent yet blunt horn swoons, amassed chatter, sweeps of ringing clutter, and latter some gritty flits, exotic bird warbling coming towards the end. Or the epic twelve & a half minutes “Indigo”- which has an almost 3D quality with its mix of ringing & warbling bell tones, jittering-yet- subdued cymbal like flutters, sinister bass sneers, and majestic rising organ- all creating a wonderful surrounding feeling that's both malevolent, yet somehow space swooning quality about it.
The final disc is taken up by just one track “Maroon”- this slides in at forty six-minute mark. It opens with the sound of sheep & ringing-yet-blending bell tones, which create a nicely woozy yet unbalancing feel. By the nearing four-minute mark this semi spacey & heavenly like drone is making it’s way through the track background. As the track processes, Stelzer skillfully blends & blurs the layers to grand-yet-sweepingly surreal levels- creating this feeling of densely-yet-cryptic sonic encasement….with in the last quarter things nicely reduces down to a hovering-yet- slowly fading dying mid-range drone.
Invariably Falling, Into The Thickets Of Closure finds Stelzer once again offering up a varied & largely consistent long form release- with moments here really finding him pushing his sound in quite surprising genre directions.