Long-time, far-reaching purveyors and curators of all noise under and beyond the sun, Howard Stelzer and Frans de Waard team up, not for the first time, but for the first time on record in years.
Long-time, far-reaching purveyors and curators of all noise under and beyond the sun, Howard Stelzer and Frans de Waard team up, not for the first time, but for the first time on record in years. Published by an emerging one-man operation in Poland, in his frolicsome liner notes to Pink Pearl, Stelzer kind of explains how the duo blend and recycle studio, live and mail recordings crafted during 2011-12. “Two Rings at Least” spins tense shipyard drones on a lathe. A mere appetizer at just over three minutes, “Pink Pearl (Exhaust)” is a braid of the tongues of wind slipping off the streamlines of some big smooth, sleek thing.
Two industrial-sized pieces follow, seventeen- and twenty-four-and-a-half minutes, respectively. Slowly submerging, “Eraser” is a bathysphere out of Victorian adventure fiction outfitted with sonar to pick up the crackling of transparent crustaceans munching on plankton. “Here We Are” is far darker and dramatic underwater claustrophobia, failing buoyancy, plummeting pressure, men’s voices clawing at metal and then telling quiet, recovery and churchly consecration; an audio film from inside the dreadful fate of a sinking Russian submarine under Arctic ice.
Keep an eye on Bocian Records. Its burgeoning catalog is growing into a roll call of important work by important artists.
Pink Pearl is available on Bocian.
