Howard Stelzer has been active as a composer and performer of electronic music since 1992. His visceral improvised music utilizes the qualities inherent to cassette tape and tape players; namely hiss, the roll of tape across play heads, the crackle of dirt caught inside old players, play speed altered manually by pressure from fingers applied to the tape's reels. Stelzer's work tends to employ space and silence as well as gritty low-fidelity noise, and is almost always centered on the physicality of live performance.

Stelzer is a member of the BSC, a large electro-acoustic orchestra led by sax player Bhob Rainey, and the group Skeletons Out, with Jay Sullivan. He also operates the Intransitive Recordings label for electro-acoustic and improvised music. and regularly hosts sound-art, electronic and improvised music concerts by visiting and regional artists in the Boston area, where he lives.