Table of the Elements is an

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

record label created by Jeff Hunt and co-owned by Hunt and producer/writer Paul Williams. Begun in 1993, the label’s 150-plus releases form a significant contemporary chronicle of American

experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...

. Table of the Elements numbers its releases to correspond to symbols from the

periodic table The periodic table, also known as the periodic table of the elements, is an ordered arrangement of the chemical elements into rows (" periods") and columns (" groups"). It is an icon of chemistry and is widely used in physics and other s ...

in increasing order of

atomic weight Relative atomic mass (symbol: ''A''; sometimes abbreviated RAM or r.a.m.), also known by the deprecated synonym atomic weight, is a dimensionless physical quantity defined as the ratio of the average mass of atoms of a chemical element in a giv ...

, rather than using the traditional numerical system. Table of the Elements concentrates on releases and re-releases of

art music Art music (alternatively called classical music, cultivated music, serious music, and canonic music) is music considered to be of high culture, high phonoaesthetic value. It typically implies advanced structural and theoretical considerationsJa ...

and

minimal music Minimal music (also called minimalism)"Minimalism in music has been defined as an aesthetic, a style, and a technique, each of which has been a suitable description of the term at certain points in the development of minimal music. However, two ...

, including many avant-garde musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries, such as

John Cale John Davies Cale (born 9 March 1942) is a Welsh musician, composer, and record producer who was a founding member of the American rock band the Velvet Underground. Over his six-decade career, Cale has worked in various styles across rock, dr ...

Tony Conrad Anthony Schmalz Conrad (March 7, 1940 – April 9, 2016) was an American video artist, experimental filmmaker, musician, composer, sound artist, teacher, and writer. Active in a variety of media since the early 1960s, he was a pioneer of both ...

La Monte Young La Monte Thornton Young (born October 14, 1935) is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best k ...

Loren Mazzacane Connors Loren Mazzacane Connors (born October 22, 1949) is an American guitarist who has recorded and performed under several different names: Guitar Roberts, Loren Mazzacane, Loren Mattei, and currently Loren Connors. His music has touched on many genre ...

, Derek Bailey,

Rhys Chatham Rhys Chatham (born September 19, 1952) is an American composer, guitarist, trumpet player, multi-instrumentalist (flutes in C, alto and bass, keyboard), primarily active in avant-garde and minimalist music. He is best known for his "guitar orche ...

, Fushitsusha/ Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke, Angus MacLise,

Mats Gustafsson Mats Olof Gustafsson (born 29 October 1964) is a Swedish free jazz saxophone player. Career Gustafsson came to the attention of lovers of improvised music as part of a duo with Christian Munthe (started in 1986), as member of Gunter Chris ...

and

Thurston Moore Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter best known as a member of the rock band Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running ...

. The label’s archive, housed at Within Things, contains over 15,000 CDs and

LP record The LP (from long playing or long play) is an Analog recording, analog sound storage medium, specifically a phonograph record format characterized by: a speed of revolutions per minute, rpm; a 12- or 10-inch (30- or 25-cm) diameter; use ...

s. The Table of the Elements Archive publishes the estate of

. Table of the Elements has also hosted multiple-day music festival. It re-launched in 2025 with a catalogue of new and re-releases.
Table of the Elements to Relaunch With New Platform and Publishing House The influential label associated with Tony Conrad, Thurston Moore, and many more avant-garde artists returns with a new modus operandi, Pitchfork, Jazz Monroe

Artists

* 9 Beet Stretch, 9 Beet Stretch (Leif Inge) * Agathe Max * Alastair Galbraith * Alison Chesley * AMM * Angus MacLise * Anthony Moore * Arkansaw Man *

Arnold Dreyblatt Arnold Dreyblatt (born 1953) is an American composer, performance artist and visual artist. Biography Arnold Dreyblatt was born in 1953 in New York City. His mother, Lucille Wallenrod (1918–1998), was a painter. He started his studies at ...

* Art Kane * Ateleia (James Elliott) * Badgerlore *

Barbara Ess Barbara Ess (born Barbara Eileen Schwartz; April 4, 1944 – March 4, 2021) was an American pinhole camera photographer, No Wave musician and ''Just Another Asshole'' editor. She taught photography at Bard College since 1997; who in 2024, along w ...

* Belong * Ben Vida * Bernhard Günter *

Birchville Cat Motel Birchville Cat Motel is a one-man experimental music project formed by Campbell Kneale from Wellington, New Zealand. Although largely unrecognised by the mainstream press and public in his home country, Kneale has toured throughout Japan, Unite ...

* BC Gilbert * Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band * CM von Hausswolff *

Charlemagne Palestine Chaim Moshe Tzadik Palestine (born August 15, 1947), known professionally as Charlemagne Palestine, is an American visual artist and musician. He has been described as being one of the founders of New York school of minimalist music, first initia ...

Christian Fennesz Christian Fennesz (born 25 December 1962) is an Austrian producer and guitarist active in electronic music since the 1990s, often credited mononymously as Fennesz. His work utilizes guitar and laptop computers to blend melody with treated samp ...

* Collections of Colonies of Bees * Davey Williams * David Daniell *

David Grubbs David Grubbs (born September 21, 1967) is an American composer, guitarist, pianist, and vocalist. He was a founding member of Squirrel Bait, Bastro, and Gastr del Sol. He has also played in Codeine (band), Codeine, The Red Krayola, Bitch Magnet a ...

* Derek Bailey *

Eliane Radigue Éliane is a French feminine given name, also used as a surname. Eliane or Éliane may also refer to: * 1329 Eliane, a Main-belt Asteroid discovered on March 23, 1933 * Éliane, the name for Hill A1 in the 1954 battle of Dien Bien Phu taken by C ...

* Erling Wold *

Faust Faust ( , ) is the protagonist of a classic German folklore, German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust (). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a deal with the Devil at a ...

* Francisco López * Fushitsusha *

Gastr del Sol Gastr del Sol (derived from a combination of the name of a race horse (Gato del Sol) and David Grubbs' previous band Bastro) was an American, Chicago-based band, consisting for most of their career of David Grubbs and Jim O'Rourke. Between 19 ...

Gate A gate or gateway is a point of entry to or from a space enclosed by walls. The word is derived from Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic ''*gatan'', meaning an opening or passageway. Synonyms include yett (which comes from the same root w ...

* Hans Reichel * Hal Rammel * Helen Money * Henry Kaiser * Jack Rose * Jack Smith * Jackie Higgins * Jean-Marc Montera *

Jennifer Walshe Jennifer Walshe (born 1 June 1974) is an Irish composer, vocalist and artist. Biography Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1974. She studied composition with John Maxwell Geddes at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama ...

* Jim O'Rourke *

* John Fahey * Jon Mueller *

Jonathan Kane Jonathan Kane (born November 4, 1956) is an American musician and composer. Coming out of New York's Downtown No Wave music scene of the early 1980s, Kane is known for his work with minimalist composers La Monte Young and Rhys Chatham, and was ...

Joseph Nechvatal Joseph Nechvatal (born January 15, 1951) is an American post-conceptual digital artist and art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom computer viruses. Life and work Joseph Nechva ...

* Keiji Haino * Keith Rowe *

KK Null , known by his stage name KK Null, is a Japanese experimental multi-instrumentalist active since the early 1980s. He began as a guitarist but learned how to compose, sing, play drums, and create electronic music. He also studied Butoh dance at M ...

* LaDonna Smith *

Laurie Spiegel Laurie Spiegel (born September 20, 1945) is an American composer. She has worked at Bell Labs, Bell Laboratories, in computer graphics, and is known primarily for her electronic music electronic music, compositions and her algorithmic compositio ...

Lee Ranaldo Lee Mark Ranaldo (born February 3, 1956) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, best known as a co-founder of the rock band Sonic Youth. In 2004, ''Rolling Stone'' ranked Ranaldo at number 33 on its "Greatest Guitarists of All Time" li ...

Lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

s * Loren (Mazzacane) Connors *

Marian Zazeela Marian Zazeela (April 15, 1940 – March 28, 2024) was an American light artist, designer, calligrapher, painter, and musician based in New York City. She was a member of the 1960s experimental music collective Theatre of Eternal Music, and was ...

* Matthew Welch *

Megafaun Megafaun is an American psychedelic folk band based in Durham, North Carolina.Mongillo, Peter (2010) "Megafaun relaxes into headlining slot", ''Austin American-Statesman'', April 27, 2010, p. D02 History Brothers Brad Cook (bass, guitar) and Ph ...

* Melissa St. Pierre * Mike Kelley *

Neptune Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the List of Solar System objects by size, fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 t ...

* One Umbrella * Oren Ambarchi * Patrick Nickelson * Paul Panhuysen * Pauline Oliveros * Peggy Ahwesh * Presocratics * R. Keenan Lawler * Radio Guitar * Rafael Toral * RLW (Ralf Wehowsky) *

Richard Youngs Richard Youngs (born 29 May 1966) is an English musician based in Glasgow since the early 1990s. His catalogue of solo and collaborative work formally begins with ''Advent'', first issued in 1990. He plays many instruments, most commonly choos ...

* San Agustin Trio * School of Seven Bells * Hubcap City * Stephen O'Malley * Terri Kapsalis * Text of Light *

The Dream Syndicate The Dream Syndicate is an American alternative rock band from Los Angeles, California, originally active from 1981 to 1989, and reunited since 2012. The band is associated with neo-psychedelia and the Paisley Underground music movement; of the b ...

* Thunderboy! *

Transmission Transmission or transmit may refer to: Science and technology * Power transmission ** Electric power transmission ** Transmission (mechanical device), technology that allows controlled application of power *** Automatic transmission *** Manual tra ...

* William Hooker * Zeena Parkins

References

External links

Table of the Elements official siteWithin Things Table of the Elements Archive
* American record labels Experimental music record labels {{US-record-label-stub

Artists

See also

References

External links