Chances are you’ve never found your way to the Tank Center for Sonic Arts in Rangely, Colorado, some 280 desolate miles west of Denver. It is, in fact, a 600,000-gallon tank, constructed around 1940 as a railroad water-treatment facility, then moved in the mid–1960s as part of a fire-suppression system for the Rangely utility company. But in its new location, the tank could not be filled because the shale substrate could not support the weight. In 1976, the sound artist Bruce Odland went inside, discovered the interior’s amazing 40-second reverb, and the rest is history. The Tank is now a mecca for sui generis acoustic events, live and recorded. Out this month as the inaugural release on the Round Sound label: the opening fugue from Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, op. 131, played v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. Per Richard Wagner, the movement “reveals the most melancholy sentiment expressed in all music.” Under ordinary conditions, the movement runs some seven minutes. Adjusting to The Tank’s unique sonics, the cellist Jeffrey Zeigler and his colleagues stretch it out to 45 minutes. A Herculean effort, otherworldly, and profoundly arresting. Don’t expect to follow the counterpoint. —Matthew Gurewitsch