"What I had first learned about John Cale was that he had written a piece which pushed a piano down a mine shaft. We hungered for music almost seething beyond control —  or even something beyond music, a violent feeling of soaring unstoppably, powered by immense angular machinery across abrupt and torrential seas of pounding blood."

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Tony Conrad Collection no.10

 
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John Cale
New York in the 1960s
2004

Table of the Elements
[Francium] TOE-LP-87
5x phono LPs, wood case, lacquer, silkscreen, dyed-linen libretto

 
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John Cale
Tony Conrad
Angus MacLise
La Monte Young
Marian Zazeela
Day of Niagara: Inside the Dream Syndicate Vol. I
2000

Table of the Elements
[Tungsten] TOE-CD-74
Compact disc

Tony Conrad Collection no. 20

 
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John Cale
Sun Blindness Music
2001

Table of the Elements
[Rhenium] TOE-CD-75
Compact disc, obi + catalog

Tony Conrad Collection no. 21

 
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John Cale
Dream Interpretation: Inside the Dream Syndicate Vol. II
2001

Table of the Elements
[Gold] TOE-CD-79
Compact disc, obi + catalog

Tony Conrad Collection no. 22

 
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John Cale
Stainless Gamelan: Inside the Dream Syndicate Vol. III
2002

Table of the Elements
[Mercury] TOE-CD-80
Compact disc, obi + catalog

Tony Conrad Collection no. 23

 
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John Cale
New York in the 1960s
2004

Table of the Elements
[Francium] TOE-LP-87
5x phono LPs, wood case, lacquer, silkscreen, dyed-linen libretto

Tony Conrad Collection no. 24

 
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John Cale
New York in the 1960s
2005

Table of the Elements
[Francium] TOE-CD-87
3x compact discs, wood case, lacquer, silkscreen, dyed-linen booklet

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John Cale's great credit, both inside and outside the Velvet Underground, was to have found the inoculation dosage that would addict the music industry to SOUND without alienating one world from the other. But outside the "official" VU there was also an uncut version of the virus, incubated behind the slum walls of the 1960s Lower East Side, and maintained live in the liquid nitrogen of these insolently recorded reel-to-reel audiotapes, recorded and produced by Tony Conrad and now available in the massive Table of the Elements 3xCD (5xLP) boxed set, "New York in the 1960s."

"The recordings in this three-disc series come from another underground, a deep vein of labor and experimentation that parallels Cale's time with the Velvets. It is jubilantly private music, made alone and with like-minded spirits—Tony Conrad, Sterling Morrison, original Velvets percussionist Angus MacLise—far from the hot light of the Velvets' public notoriety and the rough politics of Cale's relationship with Reed. And it is important music, an illuminating, heretofore unknown chapter in Cale's creative advance.

"What is truly extraordinary about the sixteen performances spread across these three volumes—Sun Blindness Music, Dream Interpretation and Stainless Gamelan—is their explosive foresight. The florid distortion of Cale's guitar pieces and the tandem bull-elephant hum of his viola and Conrad's violin prefigure the aggressive majesty and expressive dissonance of punk rock, No Wave and the Transfigured Guitar movement led by Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham and Sonic Youth. In his pulsing keyboard essays, Cale marries the grace and science of minimalism to the mainstream throb of rock & roll, a full decade ahead of Brian Eno and the Berlin-era David Bowie. When Cale tests the barriers of possibility in his tools—the guts of an abandoned piano, the jammed keys on an organ, the pause control of a Wollensak tape recorder—he generates a synthetic music that connects Edgard Varése, Henry Cowell and Karlheinz Stockhausen with contemporary electronica and turntablism.

"These recordings have been virtually unheard since they were made more than three decades ago. But their prescience is undeniable. So is their power and purity. Working in the shadows of both pop and art, building on discoveries and inventions from his life before and with the Velvets, Cale committed to tape a highly personal and exhilarating vision of the future of music. It now sounds like fact."


David Fricke, from the liner notes

  • Earliest recordings by Velvet Underground founder and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member John Cale

  • Gorgeous, limited-edition release in black-lacquered wood box with black paper libretto

  • Liner notes by Rolling Stone's David Fricke

  • Features rare and previously unreleased recordings

  • Includes performances by fellow Velvet Underground members Sterling Morrison and Angus MacLise and minimalist pioneer Tony Conrad

  • 5xLP set Includes bonus tracks featuring pioneering artist and filmmaker Jack Smith

"Shuddering rhythms at first sparkle like sunlight on water, before evoking the incandescence of a star going supernova. A reinvention of what we know of the past, and a treasure brought to light... Astonishing."
The Wire

"As devastating as the rock & roll on the Velvets' 'Sister Ray... Proves once again that La Monte Young's claim that he was the defining moment in minimalism is just insane."
All Music Guide

"These aural documents have been a long time in coming. They could have exploded the myth. Instead they are an awesome, concrete substantiation of all the excitement their long non-appearance has generated. They completely re-write the territory of minimalism with willful abandon and supercharged exhilaration. A revelation."
Monocular Times

"Attesting to Cale's visionary artistry, the volumes lay the foundation for countless musical developments that followed. 'Sun Blindness Music' beats Eno to the ambient game and anticipates turntablism by decades, while 'Dream Interpretation''s feedback and noise would open the gates for the likes of Sonic Youth. So think of this box as a womb from which all the cool bands you like were birthed. Your other box sets will weep with envy."
Rock Newz

"You'd think Table of the Elements had cornered the market on historic minimalist documents. And they pretty much have."
Pitchfork

"Jubilant, private pieces performed with passion and skill."
Sugar and Spice

"Number 1 Release of 2001."
Washington City Paper

"Best of 2001"
Downtown Music Gallery, NYC

"Tops of 2001"
Songs of Praise

"John Cale is rock's international traveler. His work is a trans-continental drift of moons and maps, seas and seachange, envoys and ennui ... his eye has spanned the globe and his mind ranged as far from rock's parochial trails as it's possible to get ... his world is bounded only by the limits of his imagination."
The Wire

"This music is the intimate expression of a committed seeker, a strange magic finally heard in its humble seductive essence."
David Fricke, from the liner notes

“A reinvention of what we know of the past, and a treasure brought to light.”

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OWN THE ARCHIVE

(Posted by Within Things, May 18, 2023)

From 1993, US recording label Table of the Elements has staked its claim on a massive enterprise. It intends nothing less than to rewrite the history of American music in the second half of the 20th century. The label’s 150-plus releases are a vital contemporary chronicle, a survey of meaningful eruptions across a broad horizon of improvised, experimental, minimal and outsider sounds.

The label’s carefully cultivated archive now contains over 15,000 CDs and LPs, an impossible quantity to logistically or financially maintain. Rather than “recycle” the majority of these modern sound and design artifacts, Table of the Elements is making them available to the public via Within Things.

From rich bundles of obscure recordings, exclusive printed material, and limited quantity “holy grails,” Within Things is excited to help connect this important archive to the public. We’re very honored to collaborate with a label that helped define a path and inspire what we do, long before our store even existed.

Click the image above to be taken directly to the Table of the Elements section on our site, and stay posted for the announcement of limited offerings via our newsletter.

~~o0o~~

"The supremacy of Table of the Elements as an unwavering outpost of ultra-experimental strains can be attributed to its concomitant adherence to valiance. Most of the Table of the Elements catalog 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 everybody 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

"The music made and cultivated by such artists as Tony Conrad, Captain Beefheart, John Fahey, Cecil Taylor, Rhys Chatham, Charlie Feathers, Dock Boggs, Jim O’Rourke, Faust, Derek Bailey, Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth, Keiji Haino, Arnold Dreyblatt, Charley Patton, Harry Smith, and scores more, is at once among the most radical and deeply rooted of the 20th century, transcending time and place through the agency of the vibrating string, the resonance of the drone, the terrifying beauty of electric amplification, the hypnotic power of repetition, and the revelatory genius of cranky individualism. 

"How does someone begin to represent that in a visual manner? The trick involves some old-fashioned alchemy. Everyday commodity has to be constructed as both miniature museum and theater. No longer a mere object, it now becomes a site in which one can endlessly indulge a sense of wonder, love and, yes, obsession. It’s not often that someone can cast an influence on a broader design aesthetic — think Blue Note in the 1960s, with its hip Reid Miles album covers — but as this sizable body of work took shape, that’s exactly what happened.”

—Steve Dollar

“The hallmarks of this New Archivism [are] beautiful and innovative packaging, elaborate and idiosyncratic liner notes, rare and obscure recordings ... Working with graphic designers such as the Grammy-winning Susan Archie, [the label] produced a collection that combines varied textures, lavish finishes, and period details with art from the era of the original source recordings. Their treatment of Robert Longo’s late 1970s photographs for Rhys Chatham’s releases could, for instance, measure up to what’s on view at most contemporary art centers. In addition to its archival endeavor, TotE also releases the new work of its avant-garde heroes and their devotees. TotE’s active support of the work of sonic pioneers ensures that theirs are living traditions – not ossified museum objects.”

—Art Papers

Tony Conrad: Completely In the Present
A Film by Tyler Hubby

"Hubby's film captures Conrad in all his facets ... broadly as a man determined to make 'abstract art funny, happy, energetic, joyful.' Conrad lived long enough to see his early recordings, barely or never released, get the reissue and the attention they deserve. ... [Completely In the Present] is a sharp, sweet, eloquent documentary about the merriest, most artistically expansive minimalist on record. His work and his life asserted the importance of listening for the sounds nobody else has heard."

—Chicago Tribune

“Joyous, exhilarating, and transformative, Tyler Hubby’s documentary is essential viewing for anyone involved in the history of music and visual art.”

—Artforum

"Conrad was 100 percent badass. Without Tyler Hubby’s documentary and Table of the Elements ... one of the great stories of American music and art might have gone underappreciated.”

—Henry Rollins

All contents ©2024 Table of the Elements ®2024 Table of the Elements Archive. All Rights Reserved. Related media from the Table of the Elements Archive published courtesy the estate of Tony Conrad.

Since 1993, Table of the Elements has staked its claim on a massive enterprise. It intends nothing less than to rewrite the history of American music in the second half of the 20th century -- and beyond. The label’s 150-plus releases are a vital contemporary chronicle, a survey of meaningful eruptions across a broad horizon of improvised, experimental, minimal and outsider sounds.

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