Five Thousand Pretenders Who Passed the Test By Luck Alone is a new(ish) long-form work from Massachusetts-based drone maker/moody noise creator Howard Stelzer. The single, just over fifty-minute track moves through a fair bit of varied sonic territory, from ringing and dense soundscaping, onto smaller/ detailed sound crafting, through to drone/ field recording crossbreeds, and beyond.

The CD release appears on  Rural Isolation Project. The CD comes presented a four-panel digipak- on the outside panel, there’s a rather blue/ cold look to dense abstract art, and on the inside panels, a more grey to off white looking abstract art.  This works well for the sounds found within, as they seem on the cusp of sounding made & organic/ moodily free-flowing- with Stelzer's very distinctive/ unequal way of composing shining through.

The single track here clocks in at 50.37. Things kick off very full-sounding with a blend of slightly foreboding/ rattling bass drone,  amassed ringing, and baying tape reel pulled out horn work. But as we move through the piece, we get a good selection of varied sonic scaping, with the whole thing flowing together like an eventful, at times playful, at other times moody sound journey.

We shift from a blends of reeling hiss & distant haunting bell tolls. Though to more playful sonic collaging of electro purr, flick, knock and ring. Onto more bleak/ foreboding mixes of locked doom purr, billow wind tone, and eerier/ detail junk metal manipulations. And rather haunting/mysterious mixes of flowing water, gentle squeaky tape reel, and simmering drone sustains.

Five Thousand Pretenders Who Passed the Test By Luck Alone is another prime example of Mr Stelzer's distinctive take on sound making. As he once again creates a highly enjoyable & sonic varied trip, which along its length weaves in unexpected different musical genre touches. I felt this was very much a three & half release, but as we only do whole marks I’ve gone for a four. Truly, there’s no one quite like Stelzer….you can buy this directly from Howard here