Grow Fins:
Rarities (1965-1982)
1999
Revenant
No. 210
5x compact discs; casebound, litho-wrapped, 112-page book with slipcase enclosure; fluorescent and metallic inks; foil stamps; enhanced video content
“Captain Beefheart is the most important musician to rise in the Sixties, far more significant and far-reaching than the Beatles; as important for all music as Ornette Coleman was for jazz, as Leadbelly was for the blues.”
Lester Bangs, Rolling Stone
Sea Changes and Coelacanths:
A Young Person's Guide to John Fahey
2005
Table of the Elements
[Astatine] TOE-CD-85
2x compact discs, 2x booklets, custom enclosure
"John Fahey has created a universe of complexity, emotion and exquisite otherness for acoustic steel-string guitar. His musical inventions match those of John Coltrane and Harry Partch for sheer transcendental American power . . . He is as monumental and singular a musical talent as any this country has produced."
Spin
JACK ROSE
GREG MALCOLM
BEN VIDA
SIR RICHARD BISHOP
MICHAEL HURLEY
NO NECK BLUES BAND + JOHN FAHEY + COACH FINGERS
LICHENS
BADGERLORE
R. KEENAN LAWLER
PUMICE
DAVID DANIELL
The Great Koonaklaster Speaks:
A John Fahey Celebration
2006
Table of the Elements
[Protactinium] TOE-CD-91
Compact disc
"If [I Am the] Resurrection is the first and worst tribute to [John] Fahey released since his 2001 death, The Great Koonaklaster Speaks is the newest and best, the clearest and most brazen picture of the onus and inspiration Fahey has left for modern music. Importantly, this is a tribute record, but it's not a covers record: Instead, it collects unreleased work from 11 current experimental acts that feel Fahey's influence and attempt to offer a glimpse of it here. Alternately humorous, solemn, grounded, and neoteric, the rangy work on Koonaklaster asserts that Fahey wasn't perfect or filtered, and that his legacy is at once challenging and lifting. It's not about critical doublespeak or who can pick the best six-string. Instead, its liner notes are a fictional mythology of Fahey's life written in his style, and the playing recasts the characteristics that fired his legacy. Bravo."
Pitchfork
An Angel Moves Too Fast to See
Selected Works: 1971-1989
2003
Table of the Elements
[Lanthanum] SWC-CD-57
3x compact discs, 112-page book, 96-page catalog, foil lithography, mirror-board enclosures
"Like a demigod, [Rhys Chatham] set everything in motion and then disappeared, leaving us to figure out how to live in the universe he created."
New York Times
"For years Rhys Chatham's music has been more heard about than heard. While his work languished out of print, disciples such as Sonic Youth have gone to the bank with his sound. Chatham's sonic vocabulary is an inspired marriage of minimalist structures, rock cadences and glittering overtones obtained from massed electric guitars played in unusual tunings at crushing volume. [His] knack for garbling indelible melodies in gorgeous sonorities makes them as attractive as ever today."
Chicago Tribune
"Blue Oyster Cult and Kiss might've made noises about guitar armies, but it took composer Rhys Chatham to actually deploy one. And there's no other way to say this: It rocks."
Magnet
"A huge reckoning with one of the downtown greats looming larger than the Federal Reserve building. Chatham is huge, and that the box grasps so much of that significance makes it a crowning achievement."
Pitchfork
An Angel Moves Too Fast to See
Selected Works: 1971-1989
2003
Table of the Elements
[Lanthanum] SWC-CD-57
3x compact discs, 112-page book, 96-page catalog, foil lithography, mirror-board enclosures
"The music glories in the primal joy of chiming overtones and massed rhythms, and swings madly. It grins and bounds. Art music has rarely sounded so happy and well-adjusted."
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Stunning ... ambitious ... majestic ... Imagine Steve Reich conducting Godspeed You Black Emperor! and you'll be some way towards realizing this man's sound and vision ... Massive."
MOJO
"Explodes in a wall of grinding guitars before collapsing into optimistic breakdowns, proving that this is music for the mind ... Mammoth."
Creative Loafing, Atlanta
"One of the most impressive Table of the Elements releases to date!"
Downtown Music Gallery
"A volatile, shimmering wash of overtones ... a revelation."
Art Papers
"Gratifying, sternum-thudding din."
Leonardo/MIT Press
"Surging phosphorescence ... Uplifting."
Rolling Stone
"Black-and-Decker classical."
Guitar Player
A Crimson Grail
(for 400 Electric Guitars, Electric Bass)
2006
Table of the Elements
[Seaborgium] TOE-CD-86
Compact disc
Rhys Chatham, the man who rocks the minimalist canon like a hurricane, gathers up the City of Light in the evanescent beauty of his latest piece—written for 400 guitars and performed live in the basilica of landmark Sacre Coeur—with 10,000 people watching and 100,000 more on national TV. As the music shimmers, it offers a snapshot of eternity, an echo of a moment a thousand years gone—and a thousand years yet to come.
February
2005
Table of the Elements
[Radium] TOE-CD-88
Compact disc, custom enclosure, foil stamp
"Jonathan Kane is a tireless drumming phenomenon, a tornado tapped in a drum set."
Village Voice
"Virtuosic ... hypnotic ... the energy of the street is harnessed."
New York Times
Live at Federal Hall National Memorial, 1981
2006
Table of the Elements
[Xenon] TOE-CD-54
Compact disc
“... Rewardingly visceral, a dual exploration of how instruments react to the touch and how musicians mesh with each other ... a stellar ensemble."
New York Times
Live at Federal Hall National Memorial, 1981
2006
Table of the Elements
[Xenon] TOE-CD-54
Compact disc
“A composer of stature, Dreyblatt has charted his own unique course in modern classical music. Often characterized as the most rock-oriented of American minimalists, his work with the Orchestra of Excited Strings does justice to the moniker."
Dusted
JONATHAN KANE'S FEBRUARY
ARNOLD DREYBLATT
ZEENA PARKINS
SAN AGUSTIN
TONY CONRAD
TONY CONRAD WITH FAUST
RHYS CHATHAM 100 GUITAR ORCHESTRA
LEIF INGE 9 BEET STRETCH
A Field Guide to Table of the Elements
(Southeast Edition)
2005
Table of the Elements
[Thorium] TOE-CD-90
2x compact discs, custom enclosure, booklet, 18" x 12" poster
JONATHAN KANE'S FEBRUARY
ARNOLD DREYBLATT
ZEENA PARKINS
SAN AGUSTIN
TONY CONRAD
TONY CONRAD WITH FAUST
RHYS CHATHAM 100 GUITAR ORCHESTRA
LEIF INGE 9 BEET STRETCH
A Field Guide to Table of the Elements
(Southeast Edition)
2005
Table of the Elements
[Thorium] TOE-CD-90
2x compact discs, custom enclosure, booklet, 18" x 12" poster
Die Donnergötter (The Thundergods)
2006
Radium/Table of the Elements
TOE-LP-801
2x phono LPs, gatefold jacket
Photographs courtesy Robert Longo
"John Cale’s ‘Academy in Peril’ may have dragged chamber and orchestral music into the rock/pop song form, but the title is a far more apt description of what Chatham has done here. This is scored music using classical forms, but it’s simultaneously waving its hair in your face and tugging at your crutch with the insistence of a randy groupie. If academicians were going to feel their ivory towers threatened by anything surely it would be the sound of this racket shaking their concert-halls’ foundations."
Julian Cope
An Angel Moves Too Fast to See
(for 100 Electric Guitars)
2006
Radium/Table of the Elements
TOE-LP-802
Phono LP
Photographs by Robert Longo
"As An Angel Moves Too Fast To See unfolds, it develops an extended sense of grandeur that should be obvious to anyone. If some segments function very well as art rock, others really transcend all known genres - just huge wallows in oceans of sound. This [is] the music on which his reputation rests and which almost slid through the fingers of history. And the music is, well, angelic. Really.”
Byron Coley, The Wire
The Live Wire:
Woody Guthrie in Performance, 1949
2008
Woody Guthrie Archives
Casebound, 70-page book, compact disc
"Man, I could whip anybody. I was at the high point of my life from seein' Woody. He ain't a folk singer — he's a genius genius genius genius."
Bob Dylan, Time Magazine, 1963
The Live Wire:
Woody Guthrie in Performance, 1949
2008
Woody Guthrie Archives
Casebound, 70-page book, compact disc
"When Woody talks about the coming of the great dust storms, the merging of humor and pain in his words, voice, and cadence seems to define what his art and even his life were all about."
No Depression
Gong Lake
2008
Radium/Table of the Elements
TOE-LP-811
Phono LP, clear vinyl
"From the vocals that crib from the Vincent Price playbook to the creepy-crawly vibe of instrumentals like "Red Sea" and "Purple Sleep", these songs can be campy and fun just as often as they are oppressive, and can easily be both; there's just as much of the impish sound manipulation of pioneers like Raymond Scott as there is Einstürzende Neubauten. Either way, Neptune are formidable architects of sound, regardless of what they had to build to get there. While Gong Lake is more a refinement than a breakthrough, the record doesn't suggest stasis; rather, you wonder how what could have been a performance-art gimmick has sustained itself for 12 years without running out of inspiration or steam, and Gong Lake is a fine argument for them sticking around."
Pitchfork
Nightly
2007
Radium/Table of the Elements
TOE-CD-808
Compact disc, matte and gloss varnish
"Artfully evokes the humid Krautrock of Popol Vuh within a whirlpool of lush minimalism, nimble electronica and digital psychedelia. It is a voyage up a primeval river of sound within a steaming jungle of invisible detail — where the ultimate destination is forever out of reach."
ATELEIA AND BENJAMIN CURTIS
Baghdad Batterie
Guitar Series Vol. III
2008
Table of the Elements
[Neptunium] TOE-LP-93
Phono LP, laser etching, clear/mottled vinyl
Illustration by Savage Pencil
COLLECTIONS OF COLONIES OF BEES
Six Guitars
Guitar Series Vol. III
2008
Table of the Elements
[Uranium] TOE-LP-92
Phono LP, laser etching, clear/mottled vinyl
Illustration by Savage Pencil
Face to Face on High Places
2007
Radium/Table of the Elements
TOE-LP-807
Laser-etched phono LP
"A gorgeous gem ... ditches any hint of brash rock and shoots School of Seven Bells straight into the clouds."
Spin
Ink-jet stickers
"Please send a catalog! Thanks, Conlon."
Conlon Nancarrow, Mexico City, 1993
Address subsequently lost
Yttrium Festival
1996
Table of the Elements
TOE-SS-39
Letterpress, metallic ink
11" x 7.5"
"The supremacy of Table of the Elements for the past decade as an unwavering outpost of ultra-experimental strains can be attributed to its concomitant adherence to valiance. Most of the Table of the Elements catalogue has no broad commercial appeal, and many of its projects ... are risky ventures, even with respect to the experimental marketplace. Yet, this philosophy of risk works because everyone associated with the label feels like they're doing important work releasing important records, and they're willing to go for broke to make it happen.”
Pitchfork
All photographs in this gallery: Bradly Brown
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